Full text of "Journal"
JESSE HAWORTH LL.D.
1835-192°.
First President Manchester Egyptian Association.
JOURNAL
OK THE
MANCHESTER EGYPTIAN AND ORIENTAL
SOCIETY
PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
(H. M. MCKECHNIE, SECRETARY)
12 LIME GROVE, OXFORD ROAD, MANCHESTER
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
LONDON: 39 PATERNOSTER ROW-
NEW YORK : 443-449 FOURTH AVENUE
AND THIRTIETH STREET
BOMBAY: 8 HORNBY ROAD
CALCUTTA: 303 BOYVBAZAR STREET
MADRAS: 167 MOUNT ROAD
VKV • I '
r\<
JOURNAL OF THE MANCHESTER
EGYPTIAN AND ORIENTAL
SOCIETY
Vol.S"
1915-1916
X1'
MANCHESTER
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
12 LIME GROVE, OXFORD ROAD
LONGMANS, GREEN & CO.
LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, ETC.
1916
I
CONTENTS
PAGE
List of Officers and Members of the Society 6
Editorial Note 7
Objects of the Society .8
Position of the Society at the end of Session 1915-16 . . 9
Proceedings of the Session 1 1
Prof. J. H. Moulton on Some Problems of East and West. . 1 1
Prof. G. Elliot Smith on The Relation of Egypt to the Early
History of Navigation . . 13
Prof. G. Univin on Eastern Factors in the Growth of Modern
Cities 13
Prof. L. de la Vallee Poussin on Nirvana 17
Books and Pamphlets received since September, 1915 ... 20
Statement of Receipts and Expenditure .... 22
Special Papers and Articles :
The Transmission of the Kuran. By Alphonse Mingana . . 25
The Origin of Chinese Writing. By E. H. Parker ... 49
Ships as Evidence of the Migrations of Early Culture.
By G. Elliot Smith 63
Notes on Philology, etc. :
Purim. By Maurice A. Canney . . . . . .103
Sir Gaston Maspero. By Winifred M. Crontpton .... 104
MANCHESTER EGYPTIAN AND ORIENTAL SOCIETY
SESSION 1915-16
List of Officers and Members
President
Professor J. H. MOULTON, M.A., D.Litt., D.C.L.
Vice- Presidents
The Vice-Chancellor of the University (Sir HENRY MIERS, M.A., Ph.D., D.Sc., F.R.S.)
The Right Rev. THE LORD BISHOP OF
LINCOLN (E. L. HICKS, D.D.)
The Right Rev.THE BISHOP OF SALFORD
(L. C. CASARTELLI, D.Litt.Or., D.D.)
F. A. BRUTON, M.A.
Principal R. M. BURROWS, D.Litt. (King's
College, London)
S. H. CAPPER. M.A.
Professor T. W. RHYS DAVIDS, LL.D.,
Ph.D., F.B.A.
Hon. Professor W. BOYD DAWKINS, M.A.,
D.Sc., F.R.S.
A. H. GARDINER, D.Litt.
JESSE HAWORTH, LL.D.
W. EVANS HOYLE, M.A., D.Sc., M.R.C.S.
Professor E. H. PARKER, M.A.
Professor A. H. PEAKE, M.A., D.D.
Professor G. ELLIOT SMITH, M.A., M.D.,
F.R.S.
Other Members of the Council
Ven. Archdeacon ALLEN, M.A.
Rev. C. L. BEDALE, M.A.
Rev. J. T. BREWIS, M.A., B.D.
Professor M. A. CANNEY, M.A.
Mrs. RHYS DAVIDS, M.A.
Professor A. C. DICKIE, M.A., F.S.A.,
F.R.I.B.A.
Miss CAROLINE HERFORD, M.A.
Mrs. HOPE W. HOGG, M.A.
Professor Sir T. H. HOLLAND, K.C.I.E..
D.Sc., F.R.S.
Honorary Secretaries
Professor M. A. CANNEY, M.A. (Editor-Secretary)
Miss W. M. CROMPTON (Treasurer-Secretary)
Mrs. W. HARTAS JACKSON
Rev. H. S. LEWIS, M.A.
THE LIBRARIAN, the Rylands Library (Mr.
H. GUPPY, M.A.)
Principal MARSHALL, M.A., D.D.
Rev. J. A. MEESON, M.A., LL.B.
T. ERIC PEET, M.A.
W. M. TATTERSALL, D.Sc.
Rev. W. L. WARDLE, M.A., B.D.
Sir FRANK FORBES ADAM
P. J. ANDERSON
S. ARCHER-BETHAM
Dr. ASHWORTH
Dr. C. J. BALL
J. R. BARLOW
Miss A. E. F. BARLOW
Dr. W. H. BENNETT
C. H. BICKERTON
Dr. J. S. BLACK
G. BONNERJEE
Miss E. E. BOUGHEY
R. A. BURROWS
Miss M. BURTON
WM. BURTON
Professor W. M. CALDER
Mrs. CANNEY
Mrs. CAWTHORNE
MbsCAWTHORNE
F. O. GOLEM AN
Professor R. S. CON WAY
Dr» DONALD CORE
Other Members of the Society
Professor T. W. DAVIES
Miss DAVISON
W. J. DEAN
Professor A. C. DICKIE
C. W. DUCKWORTH
Mrs. ECKHARD
M. H. FARBRIDGE
Col. PHILIP FLETCHER
Mrs. PHILIP FLETCHER
Miss K. HALLIDAY
F. J. HARDING
J. S. HARD MAN
Mrs. JESSE HAWORTH
H. A. HENDERSON
MissMONICAHEYWOOD
Professor S. J. HICKSON
Miss JACKSON
Canon C. H. W. JOHNS
Miss E. F. KNOTT
E. C. LOWE
J. H. LYNDE
Rev. H. M. McLACHI.AN
J. MAGUIRE
E. MELLAND
Dr. ALPHONSE MINGANA
B. RODRIGUEZ-PERE1RA
EVAN ROBERTS, Jn.
Mrs. ROBINOW
Miss M. ROEDER
H. LING ROTH
J. PADDOCK SCOTT
Miss JULIA SHARPE
Mrs. SALIS SIMON
Rev. D. C. SIMPSON
Mrs. ELLIOT SMITH
Rev. W. T. STONESTREET
G. W. TAYLOR
Rev. W. THOMAS
T. G. TURNER
Rev. J. BARTON TURNER
Professor G. UN WIN
MissK. WILKINSON
R. B. WOODS
G. S. WOOLLEY
EDITORIAL NOTE
WITH the present number, the Journal of the Manchester
Egyptian and Oriental Society reaches its fifth year
of publication. In spite of the war, which of necessity
lias directed the chief energies of many of our supporters
into new channels, we have been able to survive and in
some respects even to make progress. For this we have
to thank our Journal-members, subscribers of donations
to our Special Publications Fund, our Lecturers, and
the contributors of important articles. From all these
we have received generous help.
In consequence of the war, the need and value of such
societies, lectures, and publications as ours are likely to
be realised more fully than ever before. On the camping
grounds of Egypt and Mesopotamia many members of
the British Army — some of them University students —
are experiencing a new, or a renewed and intensified,
interest in the Arabic Language and Literature, in
Egyptology, and in Assyriology. In these circumstances
there is every reason to hope that before long the
scientific study of such subjects in the British Empire
will receive a powerful impetus.
MAURICE A. CANNEY.
The University, Manchester,
September^
OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY
(i.) To discuss questions of interest with regard to the languages,
literatures, history and archaeology of Egypt and the Orient.
(ii.) To help the work of the excavating societies in any way
possible.
(iii.) To issue, if possible, a Journal. If this is not possible, to
print a,t least a Report, including abstracts of the papers
read at the meetings of the Society.1
SUBSCRIPTIONS
(a) For ordinary members, 55. per annum (student members,
2s. 6d.).
(£) For Journal members, los. 6d., of which 55. 6d. is assigned
to the Special Publications Fund.
Subscriptions are due in January.
PUBLICATIONS
Journal of the Manchester Oriental Society for 1911,
published 1912 ... ... ... ... ... 55. od. net.
Journal of the Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society
for 1912, published 1913; for 1913, published 1914;
for 1914, published 1915; for 1915, published 1916 53. od. net.
The more important articles can be purchased separately.
Manchester Egyptian Association Report ',1909-191 2 ... each os. 3d. net.
Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society Report^ 1912-13,
1913-14,1914-15 ... is.6d.net.
List of Books on Egyptology published September \ 1912, to
September, 1913, and Catalogue of Library of the
Society ... ... ... ... os. 6d. net.
1 There is a Special Publications Fund, for which subscriptions and donations are invited.
8
REPORT
OF THE
MANCHESTER EGYPTIAN & ORIENTAL SOCIETY
1916
POSITION OF THE SOCIETY
AT END OF SESSION 1915-16
THE continuance of the European War has naturally restricted
the activities of the Society and but four meetings were held
during the session. These, however, of which details are given
under "Proceedings," p. n, were well attended. The number
of resignations (nine) is less than might have been expected,
and the Society still numbers one hundred members. The new
members are but three, yet a special welcome is due to each of
them. First we may mention Sir Henry Miers, who, directly
after his installation as Vice-Chancellor of the University showed
a great interest in the Society and was good enough to accept
the office of a Vice-President. Secondly, we have been
strengthened by the accession to our ranks of Dr. Alphonse
Mingana, Semitic Palasographist of the John Rylands Library,
and now (July, 1916) a member of the Staff of the University.
Thirdly, members will note with pleasure the entrance of Mrs.
Maurice Canney into the Society.
io REPORT
The number of books and pamphlets added to our collection
is 21, making a total of 192. The most important addition is
Notes on the Story of Sinuhe, a recently published volume by
Dr. Alan Gardiner. This was presented by the author, a valu-
able and welcome token of his continued interest in the Society.
Both he and Dr. Elliot Smith continue most kindly to send
us reprints of papers contributed to various Journals. Our
thanks are rendered to the donors of these most acceptable
gifts. A list of the additions to our collection received since
September, 1915 will be found on p. 20. The inclusion of Lord
Kitchener's name in this list is a reminder that in the sad death
of the late Secretary for War the Country has lost not only a
great soldier, but also one who in more peaceful activities did
work of great importance in Egypt, Palestine, and elsewhere.
His achievements in Egypt, the benefits of which operated in all
directions are fresh in the public memory. We are carried
further back when we recall that from 1874 to 1878' he was
engaged upon the Palestinian Survey and from 1878 to 1882 upon
the Cyprus Survey. As a Society which is interested specially
in Egypt and Egyptology, Palestine and the adjoining countries,
we take mournful note of the loss of one whose work, apart from
his great military services, came into touch with that of Egyptolo-
gists and Orientalists.
The attention of members is called to the new " General
Guide " to the Manchester Museum, price 3d. This devotes
thirteen pages to the Egyptian collection as well as several
plates. A demand for it would encourage the Committee to bring
out Guides for the, various departments.
The cessation of excavation in Egypt by English Societies
has caused the flow of antiquities to our Museum to cease. Two
out of the three public lectures advertised to be delivered by
Mr. T. Eric Peet last October on the Egyptians " at Work," " at
Play," and " at War," as well as his University course on
Egyptian language had also to be abandoned, much to the regret
of many, owing to Mr. Peet obtaining a commission in the A.S.C.
and proceeding to Salonika.
REPORT ii
Mr. Bedale, lecturer in Assyriology, left us during the Session
to serve as a Chaplain to the Forces, but his work was carried
on by Mr. M. Farbridge. Many other members of the Council
and the Society are engaged in war work either with the Forces
or in England, and to all we wish a happy end to their labours,
through peace, ere our next Report is due.
W. M. C.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE SESSION
1915 — 1916
THE First Meeting of the Session was held on October 7th,
1915, the President in the Chair. Before the Society proceeded
to other business, a report on its position was read by the
Treasurer- Secretary and the officers were re-elected. It was
resolved to ask the Vice-Chancellor of the University, Sir Henry
Miers, to allow his name to be added to the list of Vice-Presidents.
It was resolved further that the Bishop of Salford should act as
Chairman of the Society during the absence of the President,
Dr. J. H. Moulton, in India.
The President, who was about to leave for India immediately,
then delivered from the Chair an address on " Some Problems
of East and West." He said he proposed to confine himself to
the bearing of language on the question of the first beginnings
of the Indo-European peoples. What was the place from which
these peoples radiated? Originally it was assumed that it was
from a place somewhere in Asia. But about fifty years ago
Latham suggested that the place of radiation was more probably
somewhere in Europe. In the last decades opinion ha(d been
swaying a good deal. Johannes Schmidt, for instance, thought
he found dontact with Babylonia. He suggested that certain
12 REPORT
primitive Indo-European words were borrowed from Babylonia,
It is better, however, to assume the correctness of the common
view—the view that the people, the still united people, who spoke
Indo-European in prehistoric times came from somewhere in
Europe. But from where? Dr. Moulton thought it best to
assume that they went from the East of Europe, though opinion
was divided as to whether it was from the shores of the Baltic
or from a place neajrer the Black Sea. The question arose
whether the race could be determined by the linguistic evidence.
But here there are great difficulties. The lecturer pointed out
that there is sometimes a great gulf between people who speak
the same languages or languages closely akin. French and
Spanish have La,tin antecedents, but there is a great difference
between Frenchmen and Spaniards. English and German are
closely related, but the peoples differ greatly. The English and
the Germans had dealt very differently with a speech of common
origin. Again, the languages of the Hindu and the Persian
were related closely, but the peoples differed widely. There
would seem to have arisen in prehistoric times a, marked cleavage
in the speech of East and West. The problems were such1 thajt
Dr. Moulton was led to put the question to ethnologists whether
we had not reason to believe that there must have been! an
extraordinary number of movements in prehistoric times of which
no record at all had been preserved, though on linguistic grounds
they seemed highly probable.
The address was followed by a discussion, in which Prof.
Elliot Smith took part. Prof. Elliot Smith expressed great
interest in the address, and said that undoubtedly there were a
number of migrations in prehistoric times of which no record
had been preserved.
Before the audience dispersed, the Society took farewell of
its President. The Bishop of Salford said that he was sure he
was voicing the feeling of the meeting when he wished Dr.
Moulton a successful and satisfactory visit to India and a safe
return at the appointed time.
REPORT 13
THE Second Meeting of the Session was held on November
26th, 1915, Professor Canney in the Chair. Professor Elliot
Smith delivered an address on " The Relation of Egypt to the
Early History of Navigation." The address was illustrated by
many lantern slides which seemed to demonstrate a striking
similarity in details between boats used in India and even in
S. America and those of ancient Egypt. In the discussion which
followed, Mr. H. D. Skinner, Ethnologist to the Wellington
Museum, New Zealand, brought forward corroborative evidence
from New Zealand. The address, with additional matter, has
been put into the form of an article, and will be found on p. 63
of the Journal.
THE Third Meeting of the Session was held on February i8th,
1916, the Bishop of Salford in the Chair. Professor G. Unwin
delivered an address on " Eastern Factors in the Growth of
Modern Cities: Baghdad and St. Nicholas."
The central body of fact dealt with in Professor Un win's paper
consisted of the widespread dedication during the early Middle
Ages of churches and fraternities to St. Nicholas of Myra in
Lycia. He attempted to establish the connection of the dedica-
tions on the one hand with the spread of commercial usages and
gild organisations from the Leva,nt westwards and on the other
hand with the simultaneous spread of a particular method of city
construction and city expansion which had been practised from
the earliest historic times in Mesopotamia,, and was especially
exemplified in the foundation of Baghdad by the Caliph Mansur
in 776 A.D.
An approximate continuity of international and intercontinental
trade through forty centuries of endless racial and political
change was rendered more probable by the discovery of the code
of Hammurabi. The forms of commercial partnership and
agency, investment and credit, found in the Babylon of 2000 B.C.
were very similar to those prevalent in the Mecca of Mahomet
i4 REPORT
(Margoliouth) or in the Upper Egypt of Mehemet All (Burck-
hardt's Nubia}. Greek and Roman commerce needed interpreting
as episodes, as offshoots of this larger continuity.
Dr. Scott Ferguson's detailed study of the commerce of Delos
in the second century B.C. was of great interest and value in this
connection (Hellenistic Athens). At that time Delos was the
principal intercontinental market for slaves. The dedications to Isis,
Hermes, and the Tyrian Hercules of the fraternities with club-
houses and chapels of the merchants who frequented it, pointed
to their descent as institutions from a much earlier time, whilst,
on the other hand, they were almost identical in their social and
religious character with the merchant gilds of the early Middle
Ages. One of the chief patron deities of commerce at Delos was
naturally Poseidon; and later, in the second century A.D., a gild
of merchants dedicated to Poseidon still existed at Tanais, at the
mouth of the Don (Minns, Scythians and Greeks]. Tanais, which
had long been under the influence of a cosmopolitan Judaism, was
a frontier post of that Levantine world, whose curious transitional
blend of more primitive custom with Hellenism and with
Christianity has been interpreted by Sir W. Ramsay and Pro-
fessor Calder. Fraternities, at first Pagan, but afterwards
Christian, played a large part in that world.
The cult of Poseidon amongst sea-faring merchants was dis-
placed by the veneration of St. Nicholas of Myra in Lycia
(Lawton, Modern Greek Folklore] to whom a church was
dedicated by Justinian at Constantinople in 530 A.D. Until
the rise of the Italian republics the Levantine region, of
which St. Nicholas thus became th,e tutelary genius, remained
the seat of activ,e commerce in Europe and the intermediary
through which the products and the technique of the more
advanced industries of Mesopotamia and Central Asia, China
and India slowly passed into the civilisation of the West. Greek
and Syrian Christians were the first agents of this intercourse,
as is shown by the earliest dedications of Florentine churches
(Davidsohn, Gesch. v. Florenz] to St. Miniata, a Greek, in
250 A.D. and to St. Reparata, a Syrian, about 400 A.D. ; but
REPORT 15
after the rise of Islam Arabs played a large part, a;ndi Offa's
gold tribute to Rome in the eighth century was paid in Arab
dinars (Brit. Numis. Journal, Vol. V).
Of this world of mingled Byzantine and Mohammedan com-
merce and culture the centre, from the ninth century to the
twelfth, tended to gravitate towards Baghdad, owing to
the rapid growth of the commerce and the industries of the
cities of Central Asia — Nishapur and Merv, Bokhara and Samar-
cand, etc., and the circumference was marked by Venice, Genoa,
and the cities of Moorish Spain. The main links between
Baghdad and the West lay in Alexandria, Antioch and the Syrian
cities.
The Crusades were not the cause of the increased intercourse
between East and West, but rather an effect of the rivalries that
grew out of it, and a serious hindrance to its peaceful and
healthy development. Incidentally the disturbance and unrest
they produced would have the effect of inducing many Levantine
traders to settle westwards, and the simultaneous expansion of
urban trade and industry favoured the movement.
The spread of St. Nicholas dedications began at this period.
In the last decade of the eleventh century Venice and Ban were
contending for the possession of the saint's body and a large
proportion of the churches erected at new ports or new markets
throughout Northern Europe werie dedicated to St. Nicholas.
Unmistakable instances of the connection between St. Nicholas
and new settlements of traders were found at Brussels, Ghent,
Amsterdam, Middleburg, Leyden, Berlin, Hamburg, Leipzig,
Frankfort-on- Maine, Prague, Stockholm, Paris, Rouen, Amiens,
Chartres, London, Newcastle, Durham, Bristol, Liverpool, Yar-
mouth, Rochester.
Other causes, unconnected with trade, assisted to make St.
Nicholas the most popular saint of the Middle Ages. There
were 385 dedications in England alone, many in insignificant
villages. Nor must it be suppos/ed that where ,the connection with
trade influence was undoubted, a settlement of Levantine traders
1 6 REPORT
was necessarily indicated. But the conclusion seemed irresistible
that the rapid spread of the cult at ports and markets implied
the activity of Levantine influences either through the migration
of the traders themselves or through the adoption of their
methods and traditions in the West.
Professor Unwin then proceeded to illustrate by a number of
slides the connection between these dedications and a specific
type of city-formation. He approached the subject by exhibiting
first the various types of city-formation based on the use of
natural defences, e.g., the hill type, the island type and the
promontory type; then the Roman type of city defended by
walls, generally commanding a ford or bridge but built well
out of the river; and, finally, the specifically mediaeval type of
city, which setting out from a nucleus of high and dry ground
in or near a river, found expansion by reclamation of ground
from the water in successive portions, often forming a concentric
pattern. This type of city-formation, in which the arts of canalisa-
tion and embankment were applied simultaneously to the purposes
of defence, navigation, and water power, was almost universal in
Holland, Belgium, and N. Germany, and very common in France
and N. Italy, whilst Kings Lynn, Oxford, and Bristol afforded
good examples in England. Now in the three last cases, and
in a great many others, e.g., Hamburg, Bierlin, Brussels, Leyden,
Paris, Florence and many others, churches of St. Nicholas stood
on ground thus reclaimed; and other Levantine dedications —
those of St. Margaret of Antioch and St. Catherine of Alex-
andria were frequently found on similar sites, e.g., at Kings Lynn
and Hamburg. These facts seemed to suggest that the new
methods of engineering which were undoubtedly being used in
the construction and expansion of nearly all western cities in
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries had been derived through the
Levant from Mesopotamia where they had been known and
employed for thousands of years. In support of this the plan of
Les Andelys, where engineering works of this kind were carried
out by Richard Cceur de Lion probably with Saracenic assistance,
was compared with that of Cairo as enlarged by reclamation of
REPORT 17
the Nile under Saladin and his successors ; and it was pointed
out that Venice, which was the earliest European instance of
this type of city, grew up under predominantly Levantine in-
fluences in a specially close connection with Alexandria which
was also built on reclaimed soil; that the foundation of
Damascus and other cities of Syria, of Persia, and Central Asia
had involved great engineering skill in canalisation and, finally,
that the plan of Baghdad, as founded by the Caliph Mansur in
776, showed the deliberate adoption of the concentric principle
which was afterwards so widely applied in Northern Europe in
close connection with Levantine dedications.
THE Fourth Meeting of the Session was held on March i6th,
1916, the Bishop of Salford in the Chair. Monsieur L. de la
Vallee Poussin, Professor of Sanskrit in the University of Ghent,
gave a lecture on " Nirvana." The lecturer pointed out at the
start that Nirvana is a thoroughly Indian conception, and that
we cannot hope to succeed in our endeavour to understand
what it means unless we are prepared to abandon all our
European and Aristotelian prejudices. Indian thought is not
troubled, as ours claims to be, by the principle of contradiction.
The following points are beyond doubt, (i) Nirvana is the
summum bonum. (2) This summum bonum may be reached here
on earth in the actual life. Nirvana="Arhatship," that is to
say, the state of a living Saint (Arhat), free from desire, and,
to some extent, free from discursive thought. (3) Nirvana is
also the condition of a Saint after death. Is this condition a
"state?" Or is it "annihilation?" That is the difficult
question.
(i) It has been maintained by some Buddhists from the
beginning that Nirvana is some kind of existence. This opinion
is in flagrant contradiction with the metaphysical doctrines that
are commonly accepted by the great majority of the Buddhist
brotherhood, but there were heretics even in the earliest ages.
1 8 REPORT
(2) The metaphysical doctrines in question (viz., as to the
non-existence of any soul or permanent principle) would require
us to admit that Nirvana is annihilation. A Saint is not re-
born, whereas " ordinary beings," men endowed with desire,
are re-born according to their merits. There are passages in
the Scriptures that support strongly the identification of Nirvana
with annihilation.
(3) But there is good reason to believe that such an identifica-
tion was not the original intention of Sakyamuni. Rather is it
a " logical " conclusion which was forced upon the Sthaviras
(the Elders or Presbyteroi) by their admission that " there is
no soul." We may take it that the most authentic records we
possess of the genuine teaching of the Sakyamuni are the cele-
brated texts (forming part of the canons of all the sects) which
state that the problem of " the state of a Saint after death "
is a. question " not to be answered," " put aside." In so many
words, Sakyamuni answers the inquiry as follows : " You are
not concerned with this question. Whatever be the case, whether
Nirvana is existence or non-existence, or existence and non-
existence, or neither existence nor non-existence, you have to
reach Nirvana, and in order to do so, you have to crush desire."
And this agnostic statement is certainly in accordance with every-
thing we know of the essentially practical character of Buddhism.
In order to crush desire, that is to say, in order to become a
Saint, it is necessary to expel every fear and hope, and therefore
to dismiss any theory whatever concerning the state of a soul
after death.
At the conclusion of the lecture, a hearty vote of thanks was
proposed by Professor Herford and seconded by Professor
Canney. Professor Herford complimented the lecturer on his
remarkably successful effort to lecture in English. Professor
Canney said that we welcomed Monsieur de la Vallee Poussin
amongst us both as an eminent Oriental scholar and as an editor
of the important Oriental journal, Le Museon. In the name of
the Society, he congratulated the editor on the continued publica-
tion of that journal. Monsieur de la Vallee Poussin had taken
REPORT 19
an interest in our own Journal of the Manchester Egyptian and
Oriental Society, for which we were grateful. In conclusion, the
seconder said he was sure he expressed the feeling of every
member of the Society and of the audience when he said that
Monsieur and Madame de la Vallee Poussin had our great
sympathy in the present circumstances and our very best wishes
for their own future and the future of their country.*
* All the Meetings of the Session were held at the University.
20 BOOKS & PAMPHLETS
BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS ADDED TO
THE COLLECTION OF THE SOCIETY
SINCE SEPTEMBER 1915
Books may be borrowed (by members only) by applying
to the Treasurer-Secretary at the
Manchester Museum
The catalogue published 1913, may be had, price 6d.
Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, 1915-16, to
date.1
British School of Archaeology in Egypt, " Heliopolis, Kafe Ammar
and Shurafa," by W. M. Flinders Petrie, E. Mackay and
others, pp. 55, pis. Ivii. London, 1915.
Cowley, A. E.—
" Origin of the Semitic Alphabet," (reprint from J. E. A.
Ill, i). London, 1916.2
Crompton, W. M.—
" Two Clay Balls in Manchester Museum " (reprint from
J. E. A. Ill, 2) p. i, pll. i. London, 1916.2
" How Time was measured by the Ancient Egyptians "
(leaflet, reprint from " Halifax Courier," June 10, 1916). 2
Gardiner, A. H.—
" Egyptian Origin of the Semitic Alphabet " (reprint from
J. E. A. Ill, i, pp. 15, pis. v). London, 1916.2
" Some Personifications, I. Hike, God of Magic " (reprint)
pp. 10, pi i. London, 1915.2
" Notes on the Story of Sinuhe " (reprint from Recueil de
Travaux) pp. 193. Paris, 1916.2
Jackson, J. W.-
Use of shells for purposes of currency (abstract of paper
read at Lit. Phil. Soc., M/c., I9i6).2
" The Aztec Moon-cult and its relation to the Chank-cult of
India," pp. 5.2
BOOKS & PAMPHLETS 21
' The Geographical Distribution of the Shell-Purple In-
dustry," pp. 29.2
" Shell-Trumpets and their Distribution in the Old and New
World," pp. 22.2
" The Money Cowry as Sacred Object among N. American
Indians," pp. 10.
(Four above from vol. 60, part II of " Memoirs and Proceed-
ings of Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society,"
Session 1915-16.)
Jaini, Jagmanderlal. —
"Outlines of Jainism," pp. 156. Cambridge, 1916.*
Kitchener, H. H.-
" Descriptive Catalogue of Fifty Palestine photographs, taken
for the Palestine Exploration Fund," pp. 22. London.3
Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society. —
Journal, 1914-15.
Manchester Museum.—
" General Guide to the Collections in the Manchester
Museum," pp. 66, pis. viii, plan. Manchester, 191 5. l
Manchester University. —
"Catalogue of Publications of. Manchester, 191 5. *
Milne, J. G.-
" Leaden Tokens from Memphis " (reprint from J. E. A.
Ill, 2, pp. 107-120). London, 1916.3
" Le Monde Oriental," vol. IX, fasc. 2, 3, 1915; vol. X, fasc. i,
1916. Uppsala University.1
Rylands Library Bulletin, vol. Ill, 1915-16, to date.3
Smith, G. Elliot.—
"Commencement of the Neolithic Phase of Culture"
(leaflet). Manchester, 1916.2
' The Influence of Ancient Egyptian Civilisation in the
East and in America " (reprint from Bulletin John Rylands
Library, vol. Ill, No. i, 1916) pp. 32, pis. ;.2
" Pre-Columbian Representations of the Elephant " (leaflet).
Manchester, 1916.2
1 Exchange. 2 Presented by the author. 3 Presented by Manchester Museum.
4 Presented by the Jain Literature Society.
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22
SPECIAL PAPERS
^ARTICLES
THE TRANSMISSION OF THE KUR'AN
By ALPHONSE MINGANA.
NOT many sacred books are better known than the Kur'an, and
only a few of them have more obscure origins. The outcome
of early Kur'anic researches was summarised in Hammer's well-
known verdict : " We hold the Kur'an to be as truly Muham-
mad's word as the Muhammadans hold it to be the word of
God." This, however, has not been found in tlhe last few years
to be irrefragable. Scholars who like Noldeke had believed
that the Kur'an was wholly authentic, without any interpola-
tion— " Keine Falschung; der Koran enthalt nur echte stiicke"1 —
were obliged to revise their opinion and admit .without restriction
the possibility of interpolations (" Ich stimme aber mit Fischer
darin iiberein, dass die Moglichkeit von interpolationen in Qoran
unbedingt zugegeben werden muss ").2
In England, where the views of Noldeke had gathered con-
siderable weight, no serious attempt was made for some years
to study the subject afresh. It is, therefore, with warm welcome
that one receives original and well-considered opinions such as
those found in Hirschf eld's New Researches, in St. Clair Tisdall's
Original Sources, and in D. S. Margoliouth's masterly publica-
tions.3 The first writer has suggested that the four verses in
which the name " Muhammad" occurs were spurious.4 In the
lOrientdlische Skizzen, p. 56.
^Geschichte des Qorans, 2nd edit, by Schwally, 1909, p. 99, No. I.
sThe accusation very recently directed against the Arabists of this country
by a well-known writer, that they are still living on Muir, is a meagre tribute
to the leading Arabist of Oxford and his colleagues of Cambridge; to take
as examples some second-hand authors and scientifically worthless Islamisers.
is highly unjust.
* New researches into the composition and exegesis of the Qoran,
P- 139-
25
26 ALPHONSE MINGANA
same sense many good works have lately appeared in France,
the gist of which is embodied in Lammens's studies in the series
Scripta Pontificii Institute Biblici, and in the interesting book
of Casanova who has demonstrated convincingly the existence
of many interpolated passages. 1
We do not intend to offer in thle present essay an exhaustive
investigation of the sacred book of Islam,, no-r to dilate on
minutiae regarding a given verse in particular; we propose to
write on something more essential and more general, on the all-
important question of how the book called al- Kur'an, which most
of us read in a more scientific and comparative way than a
Zamakhshari or a Baidawi ever knew, has come to be fixed in
the form in which we read it in our days.
I.
TRANSMISSION OF THE KUR'AN ACCORDING TO
MUSLIM WRITERS.
THE first historical data about the collection of the Kur'an
have come down to us by the way of oral Hadlth, and not of
history. This is very unfortunate; because a critic is thrown
into that medley and compact body of legends, true or false,
genuine or spurious, which began to receive unchallenged; credit
at the time of the recrudescence of Islamic orthodoxy which
gave birth to the intolerant Caliph Mutawakkil (A.D. 847-861).
The reader is thus astonished to find that the earliest record
about the compilation of the Kur'an is transmitted by Ibn Sa'd
(A.D. 844) and by the traditionists Bukhari (A.D. 870) and Muslim
(A.D. 874). Before their time nothing is known with certainty,
not even with tolerable probability, and the imposing enumera-
tion of early commentators dwindles in face of the fact that
two-thirds of their authority and at least one-third of their
historicity are thrust back into the mist of the prehistoric; at
1 Mohammed et la fin du monde, 2 erne fascicule, Notes Comple-
mentaires, pp. 149-156.
THE TRANSMISSION OF THE KUR'AN 27
the most they could have been somp of those oral " Kurra's "
of whom L. Caetani has spoken in his An/tail deir /slam.1
The most ancient writer, Ibn Sa'ad, has devoted in his
tabakat* a long chapter to an account of those of the " Com-
panions " who had " collected " the Kur'an in the time of the
Prophet. He has preserved ten somewhat contradictory tradi-
tions, in which he enumerates ten different persons, each with a
list more or less numerous of traditions in his favour ; 3 these
persons are : Ubayy ibn Ka'b (with eleven traditions) ; Mu'adh
(with ten traditions); Zaid ibn Thabit (with eight traditions);
Abu Zaid (with seven traditions) ; Abud-Darda (with six tradi-
tions); Tarmmud-Dari (with three traditions); Sa'ad ibn 'Ubaid
(with two traditions); 'Ubadah ibnus Samit (with two traditions);
Abu Ayyub (with two traditions); 'Uthman ibn 'Affan (with two
traditions).
On page 113 another curious tradition informs us thai it was
'Uthman ibn 'ArTan who collected the Kur'an under the Caliphate
of 'Dinar, and, therefore, not in the time of the Prophet. Another
tradition reported by the same author, already noticed by
Noldeke,4 attributes the collection of the Kur'an in suhufs to the
caliph 'Umar himself.
The second in date, but the most important, Muslim traditionist,
Bukhari, has a very different account in connection with the
collectors of the Kur'an in the time of the Prophet.5 According
to one tradition which he reports, these collectors were four
Helpers: Ubayy ibn Ka'b, Mu'adh ibn Jabal, Zaid ibn Thabit,
Abu Zaid.0 According to another tradition they were: Abud-
Darda, Mu'adh ibn Jabal, Zaid ibn Thabit, Abu Zaid.
On page 392 is found the famous tradition endorsed by many
1 Cf. The Moslem World, 1915, pp. 380, sq.
8 Edit. Schwally, II, pp. 112-114.
8 Cj. Casaaova, Ibid, p. 109.
* Geschichte des Qorans, 1860, p. 193.
6 Bukharl, III, p. 397 (edit. Krehl).
0 The same tradition; is copied by Muslim, If, p. 49.} (edit. Dehli) and by
Tirwidhi, II, p. 309 (edit. Bulak).
28 ALPHONSE MINGANA
historians, and recently by the present writer also,1 on the
authority of Noldeke; it states that the Kur'an was col-
lected in the time of Abu Bakr, and not in the time of the
Prophet :
" We have been told by Musa b. Isma'il, who heard it from
Ibrahim b. Sa'd, who heard it from ibn Shihab, whoi in his turn
heard it from 'Ubaid b. Sabbak, who related that Zaid b. Thabit
said: " At the massacre of Yamamah, Abu Bakr summoned me,-
while 'Umar ibnul-Kftiattab was with him;" and Abu Bakr said:
" Slaughter has waxed hot among the readers of the Kur'an, in
the day of Yamamah, and I fear that it may again wax hot
among the readers in other countries as well; and that much
may be lost from the Kur'an. Now, therefore, I deem that thou
shouldest give orders for the collection of the Kur'an." I said to
'Umar, " How doest thou something that the Apostle of God-
may Gad pray on him and give him peace— has not done ? "
And 'Umar said: " By Allah, this is go'od." And 'Umar did not
cease to renew it repeatedly to me, until God set my breast at
ease towards it, and I considered it as 'Umar had considered it.
Zaid added and said : " Abu Bakr then said ' Thou art a young
man and wise, against who!m no man can cast an imputation, 'and
thou wast writing down the Revelation for the Apostle of God-
may God pray on him and give him peace — search out then the
Kur'an and collect it.' By Allah, if I were ordered to transfer
a mountain it would not have been more difficult for me than
this order to collect the Kur'an; and I said: " How canst thou
do something that the Apostle of God — may God pray on him
and give him peace—has not done; " and (Abu Bakr) said: " By
Allah, this is good; " and he did not cease to renew it repeatedly
to me, until God set my heart at ease towards it, as He has done
for 'Umar and Abu Bakr — may God be pleased with both of
them— and I sought out the Kur'an, collecting it from palm-
branches, white-stones, and breasts of men. . . And the
Suhufs (rolls) were with Abu Bakr until God took him to
Himself, then with 'Umar, in all his life-time, then with Hafsah,
1 Leaves from three Ancient Kufans, 1914.
2 The speaker is Zaid ibn Thabit mentioned in the foregoing traditions.
THE TRANSMISSION OF THE KUR'AN 29
the daughter of 'Umar— may God be pleased with him."1 This
tradition proves that the Kur'an was all collected (a) under the
caliphate of Abu Bakr, and (b) exclusively by Zaid ibn Thabit.
The tradition is immediately followed by another which runs
thus:
" We have been told by Musa b. Isma'il, who took it from
Ibrahim, who said that he had been told by Ibn Shihab, who
said that Anas b. Malik told him as follows : ' Hudaifah b.
Yaman went to ' Uthman, and he had fought with the inhabitants
of Syria for the conquest of Armenia and had fought in Adhur-
baijan with the inhabitants of 'Irak; and because their diver-
gencies in the recital of the Kur'an had terrified him, Hudhaifah
said to 'Uthman " O, Commander of the Faithful, overtake this
nation before they have discrepancies about the Book as the Jews
and the Christians have." 'Uthman, therefore, sent to Hafsah
saying : " Send us the Suhufs in order that we may transcribe them
in the m asahifs, • and then we will send them back to thee." And
Hafsah sent them to 'Uthman, who ordered Zaid ibn Thabit,
and 'Abdallah b. Zubair, and Sa'Id b. 'As, and 'Abdur-Rahman
b. Harith b. Hisham, to transcribe them in the masdhi/s. And
'Uthman said to the company of the three Kuraishites : " If
there is divergence between you and Zaid b. Thabit about any-
thing from the Kur'an, write it down in the dialect of the
Kuraishs, because it has been revealed in their dialect;"8 and
they did it, and when they transcribed the suhnfs in the
masdhifSy 'Uthman gave back the suhufs to Hafsah, and sent
to every country a mishaf of what they had transcribed, and
ordered that everything else from the Kur'an (found) in (the form
of) Sahifah or mishaf should be burnt."3
This is the oral record which, appearing 238 years after the
Prophet's death, was accepted as true and authentic, to the
exclusion of any other, by the most eminent Orientalists of the
1 This same tradition is reported in ITT, 257, and in IV, 398.
2 This information has been copied by another traditionist (Tirmidhi, II,
187) and by many subsequent writers.
* £ -~ar. " torn up."
30 ALPHONSE MINGANA
last century, led by Noldeke. Why we should prefer these two
traditions to the great number of the above traditions sanctioned
by Ibn Sa'd, an author anterior by twenty-six years to Bukhari,
and by Bukhari himself, I do noit know. Professor Casanova re-
marks : " Quant a admettre une seule des traditions comme vraie
au detriment de 1'autre, c' est ce qui me parait impossible sans
tomber dans 1' arbitraire." l Noldeke, however, believes that
Bukhari is right and Ibn Sa'd wrong, because if the Kur'an was
collected in the time of the Prophet, why should people have
taken such trouble to collect it after his death? (" Wenn sie aber
deri ganzen Qoran gesammelt hatten, warum bedurfte es denn
spater so grosser Miihe, denselben Zusammenzubringen ?). 2 But
the question is, Why should we prefer at all the story of Bukhari
to that of Ibn Sa'd who is at least credited with priority of time?
What should we do then with the other two traditions of Bukhari
which are in harmony with Ibn Sa'd in assigning the collection
of the Kur'an to the lifetime of the Prophet ? What, too, should
we make of the tradition reported by Ibn Sa'd to the effect that
the Kur'an was collected by 'Uthman b. 'Affan alone, under the
caliphate of 'Umar? What, finally, should we say about the
numerous persons who in the traditions reported above alternate
so confusedly in this "collection?" Which of them has effectively
collected and which of them has not?
In examining carefully all these oral traditions coming into
play more than 230 years after the events, at the time of those
numerous polemics in which the Muslim writers were obliged
to use the same weapons as those handled by thie People of the
Book, we are tempted to say that the same credence ought to
be attributed to them as that which has long ago been attributed
to the other Isnadic lucubrations of which only those who read the
detailed oral compilations of Bukhari and his imitators have a
true idea. " La (critique) a mis en pleine lumiere la faible valeur
documentaire, sinon de la primitive litterature islamique, du
moins du riche developpement ulterieur, repre*sente notamment
1 Ibid., II, 105.
* Geschichte des QoTutiS, 1860, p. 160.
THE TRANSMISSION OF THE KUR'AN 3'
par le recueil de Bokhari."1 Another authorised writei2 has
justly pointed out : " Les details qui entourent cette figure princi-
pale (de Muhammad) sont vraiment bien estompes et finissent
meme par s'effacer dans la brume de 1' incertitude." Not many
years ago similar honours of genuineness were conferred upon
the imposing list of the so-called " early Arabian poems," but
the last nail for the coffin of the majority of them has lately been
provided by Professor D. S. Margoliouth;3 and it is to be hoped
that, until fuller light dawns, they will never rise again.
We quote, with some reserve, the ironical phrases of an able
French scholar : " Nous 1' avons note precedemment : a cote
des poetes, nous possedons la Sira, les Maghdzi, les Sahih, les
Mosnad, les Sona/i, bibliotheque historique unique en son genre,
comme etendue et variete. A leur temoignage concordant qui
oserait denier toute valeur?"4
We can dispense with traditional compilers of a later date
who throw more confusion than light on the theme, and who
for the most part only quote their masters Bukhari, Muslim, and
Tirmidhi; Noldeke has already referred to the majority of them,-"1
and the critic who has time to spare, can easily examine them in
his book. We must mention, however, the account of the author
of the Fihrist who, although writing several years after the above
traditionists, is nevertheless credited with a considerable amount
of encyclopaedic learning which many a writer could not possess
in his time. After giving the tradition of Bukhari which we have
translated, he devotes a special paragraph to the " Collectors of
the Kur'an in the time of the Prophet,"6 and then proceeds to
name them without any Isnad. They are according to him : —
'Ali b. Abi Talib, Sa'd b. 'Ubaid, Abud-Darda, Mu'adh b. Jabal,
Abu Zaid, 'Ubayy b. Ka'b, 'Ubaid b. Mu'awiah. These names
occur in the list of Ibn Sa'd and that of Bukhari combined; but
1 R. Dussaud, in Journal des Savants, 1913, p. 133.
2 Cl. Huart, in Journal Asialique, 1913, p. 215.
8J.R.A.S., 1916, p. 397.
* Lammcns's Le berceau de I"1 Islam, p. 130.
6 Geschichte des Qorans, p. 189, sq.
c p. 27 (edit. Flugel).
32 ALPHONSE MINGANA
the Fihrist adds two new factors: 'All b. Abi Talib, and 'Ubaid
b. Mu'awiah.
The historian Tabari has another account i1 " 'Ali b. Abi Talib,
and 'Uthman b. 'Affan wrote the Revelation to the Prophet; but
in their absence it was Ubayy b. Ka'b and Zaid b. Tha'bit who
wrote it." He informs us, too, that people said to 'Uthman:
" The Kur'an was in many books, and thou discreditedst them
all but one;"* and after the Prophet's death, " People gave him
as successor Abu Bakr, who in his turn was succeeded by
'Umar; and both of them acted according to the Book and the
Sunnah of the Apostle of God— and praise be to God the Lord
of the worlds; then people elected 'Uthman b. 'Affan who . . .
tore up the Book. " 3
A more ancient historian, Wakidi, 4 has the following sentence
in which it is suggested that 'Abdallah b. Sa'd, b. Ab5 Sarh, and
a Christian slave, ibn Qumta, had something to do with the
Kur'an." And ibn Abi Sarh came back and said to Kuraish :
"It was only a Christian slave who was teaching him (Muham-
mad); I used to write to him and change whatever I wanted."
And the pseudo- Wakidi (printed by Nassau Lees5) brings forward
a certain Sharahbil b. Hasanah as the amanuensis of the
Prophet.
A second series of traditions attributes a kind of collection
(Jam') of the Kur'an to the Umayyad Caliph 'Abdul-Malik b.
Marwan (A.D. 684-704) and to his famous lieutenant Hajjaj b.
Yusuf. Barhebraeus ° has preserved the interesting and important
tradition: " 'Abdul-Malik b. Marwan used to say, " I fear death
in the month of Ramadan — in it I was born, in it I was /weaned,
in it / have collected the Kufdn (Jama'tul-Kur-ana), and in
it I was elected Caliph.' ' This is also reported by Jalalud-
Din as Suyuti, 7 as derived from Tha 'alibi.
2, 2, 836.
Ibid. I, 6, 2952.
Ibid. II, i, 516.
History of Muhammad's Campaigns, 1856, p. 68 (edit. Kremer).
Vol. I, p. 14.
Chron. Arab, p. 194 (edit. Beirut).
p. 227 (edit. Jarrett).
THE TRANSMISSION OF THE KUR'AN
33
Ibn Dukmak in his Description of Egypt, l and Makrizi
in his KhitatS say about the Kur'an of Asma : " The
reason why 'this Kur'an was written is that Hajjaj b. Yusuf
Thakafi wrote Kur'ans and sent them to the head-provinces.
One* of them was sent to Egypt. 'Abdul-'Aziz b. Marwan, who
was then governor of Egypt in the name of his brother 'Abdul-
Malik, was irritated and said: " How could he send a Kur'an
to a district of which I am the chief?" Ibnul-Athir3 relates that
al- Hajjaj proscribed the Kur'an according to the reading of Ibn
Mas'ud. Ibn Khallikan4 reports that owing to some ortho-
graphical difficulties such various readings had crept into the
recitation of the Kur'an in the time of al-Hajjaj that he was
obliged to ask some writers to put an end to them, but without
success, because the only way to recite rightly the Kur'an was to
learn it orally from teachers, each word in its right place.
At the end of this first part of our inquiry, it is well to state
that not a single trace of the work of the above collectors has
come down to posterity, except in the case of Ubayy ibn Ka'b
and Ibn Mas'ud. The Kashshaj of Zamakhshari and in a lesser
degree the Anw ami-Tamil of Baidawi record many Kur'anic
variants derived from the scraps of the Kur'an edited by the
above named companions of the Prophet. The fact is known to
all Arabists and does not need texplanation. D We need only trans-
late a typical passage from the newly published Dictionary of
learned men of Yakut:6
" Isma'il b. 'Ali al-Khatbi has recorded in the " Book of
History" and said: "The story of a man called b. Shanbudh
became famous in Baghdad ; he used to read and to teach the
reading (of the Kur'an) with letters in which he contradicted the
mishaf ' ; he read according to 'Abdallah b. Mas'ud and Ubayy
1 Pt. I, 72-74.
- II, 454 (noticed by Casanora, p. 124).
s IV, 463 (noticed by Pe'rier. vie d ai-Hadjdjadj, p. 257.)
* Vol. I, p. 183 (cdir. IJurcm de Slane)!
6 f'/. Fihrist, pp. 26-27.
• VI, pp. 301-302 (edit. D. S. Margoliouth).
34 ALPHONSE MINGANA
b. Ka'b and others; and used the readings employed before the
mis ha/ was collected by 'Uthman b. 'Affan, and followed
anomalies; he *ead and proved them in discussions, until his
affair became important and ominous; people did not tolerate
him any more, and the Sultan sent emissaries to seize him, in
the year 323 ; he was brought to the house of the vizier Muham-
mad b. Muklah who summoned judges, lawyers, and Readers
of the Kur'an. The vizier charged him in his presence with
what he had done, and he did not desist' from it, but corroborated
it ; the vizier then tried to make him discredit it, and cease to
read with these disgraceful anomalies, which were an addition
to the mis haf of 'Uthman, but he refused. Those who* were
present disapproved of this and hinted that he should bq punished
in such a way as to compel him to desist. (The vizier) then
ordered that he should be stripped of his clothes and struck with
a staff on his back. He received about ten hard strokes, and
could not endure any more ;^Jie cried out for mercy, and agreed to
yield and repent. He was then released and given his clothes
. . . and Sheikh Abu Muhammad Yusuf b. Sairafi told me that
he (b. Shanbudh) had recorded many readings."
A study of Shi'ah books reveals also some variants derived
from the recension of 'Ali's disciples. They will be discussed in
a subsequent article.
II.
TRANSMISSION OF THE KUR'AN ACCORDING TO
CHRISTIAN WRITERS.
IN considering the question of the transmission of the Kur'an
according to Christian writers, the reader will feel that he is more
in the domain of historical facts than in that of the precarious
Hadith ; unfortunately, any information found in books written at
the very beginning of Islam, is naturally scanty. In face of the
conflagration which, in a few years shook the political foundations
of the near East, Christian writers were more anxious to save
THE TRANSMISSION OF THE KUR'AN 35
their skin from the onslaughts of the Ishmaelites and Hagariatis
—as they used to call the early Arabs — than to study the kind
of religion they professed. Syriac books, however, contain im-
portant data which throw great light upon our subject, and
overshadow by their antiquity the tardy Muslim Hadith of the
ninth century.
The first account is, in order of date, the colloquy or the
discussion which took place in Syria between 'Amr b. al'As and
the Monophysite Patriarch of Antioch, John I, in the eighteenth
year of the Hijra (Sunday, 9 May, 639 A.D.). It has been pub-
lished from a MS in the British Museum dated 874 A.D. by
F. Nau, in the Journal Asiatiquel The Patriarch was sum-
moned before 'Amr along with five bishops and a great number
of notable Christians, and some days after the discussion, the
Patriarch and the bishops wrote a careful report of what had
happened, and sent it to the Christians of Mesopotamia, asking
them to " pray for the illustrious Amir, that God might grant him
wisdom and enlighten him in what is the will of the Lord."
The questions that 'Amr asked and the introductory words of
the colloquy are as follows:—
. . . We inform your love that on the ninth of this month of
May, on the holy Sunday, we went in before the glorious
General Amir. The blessed Father of all was asked by the Amir
whether the Gospel which is in the hands of all who are called
Christians in all the world, was one and without any difference
whatever. The blessed Patriarch answered . . . Then the Amir
asked why if the Gospel was one, faith was different; and the
Patriarch answered . . .
The Amir then asked, " What do you think of the Christ ?
Is He God or not? Our Father then answered . . ." And the
glorious Amir asked him this question, " When the Christ, whom
you call God, was in the womb of Mjary, who was holding and
governing heaven and earth ? " Our blessed Father answered
. . . And the glorious Amir said, " What were the views and
1 Mars-Avril, 1915, p. 248 sq.
36 ALPHONSE MINGANA
the belief of Abraham and Moses ? " Our blessed Father
answered . . . And the Amir said, " Why did they not write
clearly and show their belief about the Christ ?" and our blessed
Father answered . . . When the Amir heard these things, he
only asked whether the Christ born of Mary was God, and
whether God had a son, and whether this could be proved from
the Torah and by reason. And our blessed Father said, " Not
only Moses, but all the holy prophets have previously related
these points of the Christ ..." And the glorious Amir said that
he would not accept the proof of these points by quotations from
the prophets; but only required that it should be proved to
him by quotations from Moses that the Christ was God. And
the blessed Father among other quotations, brought forth the
following from Moses, " Then the Lord from before the Lord
brought down fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah;"1
and the glorious Amir required that this quotation should be
shown to him in the Book. And our Father showed it to him
without delay,2 in the complete Greek and Syriac Books. In that
assembly, some Hagarians (Muslims) were present with us, and
they saw the text 3 with their own eyes, and the existence of the
glorious name of the Lord twice. And the Amir called a certain
Jew, who was believed by the Jews to be a Knower of Books,
and asked him if 'this was literally true in the Torah; and the
Jew answered " I do not know with certainty."
Then the Amir digressed from this point and asked about
the laws of the Christians, how and what they were, and if
they were written in the Gospel; and asked, too, if a man dies
and leaves sons or daughters, with a wife, a mother, a sister
and a cousin, how would his heritage be divided between them ?
. . . A long discussion ensued; and not only the best-known
men among the Hagarians (Muslims) were present there, but
also the heads and the rulers of the town, and of the faithful
and Christ-loving tribes: Tannukhians, Tu'ians, and 'Akulians.4
1 Genesis xix, 24.
2 Nan translates the Syriac expression dla fuhhaya by "sans erreur
possible, •' instead of " easily, without delay."
r> Lit. " the writings."
4 Christian Arab tribes of Southern Syria.
THE TRANSMISSION OF THE KUR'AN
37
And the glorious Amir said, " I want you to do one of these tjiree
things : either to show me that your laws are written in the
Gospel, and that you are following them, or to follow the laws of
the- Hagarians (Muslims)." And our Father answered, " Our
laws, the laws of us Christians, are just, equitable, and in har-
mony with the teaching and the Commandment of the Gospel,
the prescriptions of the Apostles and the laws of the
Church." It is with this that the first gathering of that day
ended, and up to now we have not been again before the Amir."
From this important document written in the fifth year of
'U mar's Caliphate and possibly1 some months after the
terrible year of ashes, and of plague,2 we can safely infer (i)
that no Bible was translated into Arabic at that early period;3
(2) that the teaching of the Kur'an on the matter of heritages,
the denial of the divinity and the death of Christ and on the
subject of the Torah, which is given a marked predilection in
Muhammad's oracles, was familiar to the muslims present in
the discussion; (3) that no Islamic Book was mentioned when
the colloquy took place; (4) that some of the early Arab con-
querors knew how to read and to write.4
About A.D. 647, in the first years of 'Uthman's Caliphate, the
famous Patriarch of Seleucia, Isho'yahb III, said in one of his
letters which he wrote when still bishop of Nineveh, "In
excusing yourselves falsely, you might perhaps say, or the
Heretics might make you say, ' What has happened was due to
the order given by the Arabs ' (Tayyaye) ; but this would not
be true at all, because the Arab Hagarians (Muslims) do not
help those who attribute sufferings and death to God, the Lord
of everything." •"' From what we know of Isho'yahb, he would have
1 It is very difficult to determine with exactitude the chronology of events
at this period of Arab conquests.
*Cf. W. Muir, The Caliphate: its Rise, Decline and Fall, 1915,
P- 153 sg.
SC/. in Palrologia Orientalis, V, p. 51, the Arabic text edited by B.
Evetts.
* These, however, might have been Jewish or Christian renegades.
6 Edit. Duval Corp. Script. Christ. Orient, tomus LXIV., p. 97.
38 ALPHONSE MINGANA
surely mentioned or quoted the Islamic Book, had he known it,
or even heard of it (c/., Ibid p. 251).
The anonymc ... writer printed by Guidi1 knows nothing about
a sacred Book of Islam in A.D. 680, at the time of the Umayyad
Caliphate of Yazid, son of Mu'awiah. He believed the Arabs to
be simply the descendents of Ishmael, who professed the old
Abrahamic faith, and gives Muhammad as a mere general,
without any religious character. " Then God raised against
(the Persians) the sons of Ishmael like the sand of the sea-shores,
with their leader Muhammad ... As to the Ka'bah we can-
not know what it was, except in supposing that the blessed
Abraham having become very rich in possessions, and wanting
to avoid the envy of the Canaanites, chose to dwell in the distant
and large localities of the desert; and as he was living under
tents, built that place for the worship of God and thie* offering
of sacrifices; for this reason, this place received its title of our
days, and the memory of the place was transmitted from genera-
tion to generation with the evolution of the Arab race. It was
not, therefore, new for the Arabs to worship in that place, but
their worship therein was from the beginning of their days; in
this, they were rendering honour to the father of the head of
their race . . . and Madmah was called after Madian, the fourth
son of Abraham from Keturah; the town is also called Yathrib."
John Bar Penkaye2 has some interesting records in his
Chronicle about the early Arab conquests and the famous Shurat
of whose exploits he was an eye-witness, but he does not know
that these Arabs had -any sacred Book in A.D. 690, when he
was writing, under the Caliphate of 'Abdul-Malik. " The Arabs,
as I have said above, had a certain order from the one who was
their leader, in favour of the Christian people and the monks;
they held also, under his leadership, the worship of one God,
according to the customs of the Old Covenant ; at thd outset they
were so attached to the tradition of Muhammad who was their
teacher, that they inflicted the pain of death upon any one who
1 Chronica Mitwra, Ibid, tomus IV, pp. 30 and 38.
2 A. Mingana, Sources Syriaques, vol. I, pt. 2, p. 146 sqq.
THE TRANSMISSION OF THE KUR'AN 39
seemed to contradict his tradition l . . . Among them there were
many Christians, some from the Heretics,- and some from us.":j
From these quotations and from many passages of some con-
temporary writers, it is evident that the Christian historians of the
whole of the seventh century had no idea that the " Hagarian "
conquerors had any sacred Book; similar is the case among
historians and theologians of the beginning of the eighth century.
It is only towards the end of the first quarter of this century that
the Kur'an became the theme of conversation in Nestorian,
Jacobite, and Melchite ecclesiastical circles. The Christians, in
spite of the intolerant attitude of Muslim Caliphs and governors,
continued to write, frequently under pain of death, many polemical
lucubrations in refutation of the sacred Book of Islam, which met
with a swarm of answers from the Muslim side. For the end of
the century the reader will find good information in Steinsch-
neider's well-known work.4 Some years before this date two
important publications, not yet edited, saw the light, viz., the
Refutation of the Kur'an by Abu Noh, secretary to the Governor
of Mosul,5 and the apology of Christianity by Timothy, Nestorian
Patriarch of Seleucia, recently made known by Braun in Oriens
Christianus. °
So far as the transmission of the Kur'an is concerned, by far
the most important work is the apology of al-Kindi, critically
studied in 1887 by W. Muir.7
Casanova writes : "II faut, je crois, dans 1' histoire critique du
Coran, faire une place de premier ordre au Chretien Kindite."8
According to this Kindite, who wrote some forty years before
1 Notice the Syriac word Mashilmanutha "tradition" in its rapport with
" a written thing."
2 i.e., Monophysites.
s i.e., Nestorians.
4 Pol. und Apol. Littertur in Arab. Spraclte, 1877.
6 Assemani, B. O- III, i, 212.
« 1901, p. 150.
7 The Apology of al-Kindy written at the court of al-Maniun circa,
A.D. 830. An excellent edition of this work has recently appeared in Egypt
in the " Nile Mission Press," whose chairman is Dr. S. M. Zwemer.
8 Ibid. p. 119.
40 ALPHONSE MINGANA
Bukhari, the history of the Kur'an is, briefly, as follows i-1
" Sergius, } a Nestorian monk, was excommunicated for a certain
offence; to expiate it he set out on a mission to Arabia; in
Maccah he met Muhammad with whom he had intimate converse.
At the death of the monk, two Jewish doctors, 'Abdallah and
Ka'b, ingratiated themselves with Muhammad and had great
influence over him. Upon the Prophet's death, and'at the instiga-
tion of the Jews, 'Ali refused to swear allegiance to Abu Bakr,
but when he despaired of succeeding to the Caliphate, he pre-
sented himself before him, forty days (some say six months) after
the Prophet's death. As he was swearing allegiance to him, he
was asked, ' O Father of Hasan, what hath delayed thee so
long?' He answered, 'I was busy collecting the Book of the
Lord, for that the Prophet committed to my care.' The men
present about Abu Bakr represented that there were scraps and
pieces of the Kur'an with them as well as with 'Aid; and then it
•
was agreed to collect the whole from every quarter together.
So they collected various parts from the memory of individuals
(as Siiratul-Bara'ah, which they wrote out at the dictation of a
certain Arab from the desert), and other portions from different
people; besides that which was copied out from tablets of stone,
and palm-leaves, and shoulder-bones, and such like. It was not
at first collected in a volume, but remained in separate leaves.
Then the people fell to variance in their reading; some read
according to the version of 'Ali, which they follow to the present
day; some read according to the collection of which we have
made mention; one party read according to the text of ibn
Mas'ud, and another according to that of Ubayy ibn Ka'b.
" When 'Uthman came to power, and people everywhere
differed in their reading, 'Ali sought grounds of accusation against
him, compassing his death. One man would read a verse one
1 Cf. Muir, Ibid. p. 70 sq.
• The predominant role of this monk will be carefully set forth in our
future studies. The Arab authors whjo scarcely knew any other language
besides the Arabic, confused his name with the title Bhlra given by
Aramaeans to every monk; see Nau, Expansion Nesiorienne en Asie, 1914,
pp|. 213-223, who showed how misleading was the practice of some scholars
who simply availed themselves of the tardy Muslim Hadlth.
THE TRANSMISSION OF THE KUR'AN 41
way, and another man another way; and there was change and
interpolation, some copies having more and some less. When this
was represented to 'Uthman, and the danger urged of division,
strife, and apostacy, he thereupon caused to be collected together
all the leaves and scraps that he could, together with the copy
that was written out at the first. But they did not interfere with
that which was in the hands of 'Ali, or of those who followed his
reading. Ubayy was dead by this time; as for ibn Mas'ud, they
demanded his exemplar, but he refused to give it up. Then they
commanded Zaid ibn Thabit, and with him 'Abdallah ibn 'Abbas,
to revise and correct the text, eliminating all that was corrupt;
they were instructed, when they differed on any reading, word,
or name, to follow the dialect of the Kuraish.
" When the recension was completed, four exemplars were
written out in large text; one was sent to Maccah, and another; to
MadTnah; the third was despatched to Syria, and is to this day
at Malatya ; the fourth was deposited in Kufah. People say that
this last copy is still extant at Kufah, but this is not the case,
for it was lost in the insurrection of Mukhtar (A.M. 67).
The copy at Maccah remained there till the city was stormed by
Abu Sarayah (A.H. 200); he did not carry it away; but it is
supposed to have been burned in the conflagration. The
Madlnah exemplar was lost in the reign of terror, that
is, in the days of Yazid b. Mu'awiah (A.H. 60-64).
" After what we have related above, 'Uthman called in all the
former leaves and copies, and destroyed them, threatening those
who held any portion back; and so only some scattered remains,
concealed here and there, survived. Ibn Mas'ud, however,
retained his exemplar in his own hands, and it was inherited by
his posterity, as it is this day; and likewise the collection of
'Ali has descended in his family.1
" Then followed the business of Hajjaj b. Yusuf, who gathered
together every single copy he could lay hold of, and caused to
be omitted from the text a great many passages. Among these,
they say, were verses revealed concerning the House of Umayyah
1 These details will be studied in future.
42 ALPHONSE MINGANA
with names of certain persons, and concerning the House of
'Abbas also with names.1 Six copies of the text thus revised
were distributed to Egypt, Syria, Madinah, Maccah, Kufah, and
Basrah. -' After that he called in and destroyed all the preceding
copies, even as 'Uthman had done before him. The enmity
subsisting between 'AH and Abu Bakr, 'Umar and 'Uthman is
well known ; now each of these entered in the text whatever
favoured his own claims, and left out what was otherwise. How,
then, can we distinguish between the genuine and the counterfeit ?
And what about the losses caused by Hajjaj ? The kind of faith
that this tyrant held in other matters is well-known; how can
we make an arbiter as to the Book of God a man who never
ceased to play into the hands of the Umayyads whenever he
found opportunity ? "
Then al-Kindi, addressing .his Muslim friend, says : " All that
1 have said is drawn from your own authorities, and no single
argument has been advanced but what is based on evidence
accepted by yourselves; in proof thereof, we have the Kur'an
itself, which is a confused heap, with neither system nor order."
It should be noticed here that something which might be
termed an answer to al-Kindi from the Muslim side has been
discovered among the Arabic manuscripts of the John Rylands
Library, Manchester. In a MS., dated 616 of the Hijrah, I
found the Kitdbud-Dini wad-Daulah, " Book of Religion and
Empire," written in A.D. 855, by the physician 'AH b. Rabban-
at-Tabari, at the request of the Caliph Mutawakkil. It is an
official Apology of Islam, appearing at an interval of some twenty
years after the Apology of Christianity by al-Kindi. On the
important point of the transmission of the Kur'an, the author
is content to appeal to the piety, asceticism, and devotion of
the early Caliphs and disciples of the Prophet, and says, "If
such people may be accused of forgery and falsehood, the
disciples of the Christ might also be accused of the same." This
is a meagre answer to the historical indictments of al-Kindi.
1 Cf. Geschichte des Qorans, 1909, p. 255 (edit. Schwally).
2 This fact receives a direct confirmation from ibn Dukmak and Makrizl
quoted on p. 33.
THE TRANSMISSION OF THE KUR'AN 43
We trust that the Arabists will rightly value the outstanding
importance of this new work, written before all the traditional
compilations of the second half of the ninth century. So far as
the religious system of Islam is concerned, it is of an unparalleled
significance, containing, as it does, many traditions dealing with
the Prophet, his .religion and his disciples, which are not found
elsewhere. I have prepared the text for the press and translated
it with some critical annotations required by its antiquity and its
extrinsic and intrinsic importance1 After a long introduction in
which the author .praises Islam, gives good advice to be followed
in discussions, and shows the laudable zeal of the Caliph Muta-
wakkil in the propagation and vindication of his faith, he sets
forth the reasons .why people of the tolerated cults do not;
embrace Islam and why they should embrace it, and because the
greater number of the non-Muslim population were Christian,
he addresses the Christians more frequently ; in the second rank
come Jews, Magians, Hindoos, and Dualists, who, however, are
attacked more sharply. The order of the chapters is as follows :
(a) Different forms of historical facts and common agreement.
(b) Criteria for the verification of historical facts. (c) The
Prophet called to the unity of God and to what all the prophets
have believed, (d) Merits of the ways of acting and the prescrip-
tions of the Prophet, (e) Miracles of the Prophet which the
" People of the Book " have rejected. (/) The Prophet foretold
events hidden from him, which were realised in his lifetime, (g)
Prophecies of the Prophet, which were realised after his death.
(h) The Prophet was an unlettered man, and the Book which
God revealed to him is, therefore, a sign of prophetic office. (*)
The victory won by the Prophet is a sign of prophetic office.
(;') The disciples of the Prophet and the eye-witnesses of his
career were most honest and pious: (i) asceticism of the Bakr;
(2) asceticism of 'Umar; (3) asceticism of 'Ali; (4) asceticism of
'Umar b. 'Abdul- Aziz, of 'Abdallah b. 'Umar b. Khattab, and of
some other pious Muslims, (k] If the Prophet had not appeared
the prophecies of the prophets about him and about Ishmael
1 The work will be published for the Governors of the John Rylands
Library by the Manchester University Press.
44 ALPHONSE MINGANA
would have been without object. (/) Prophecies of the prophets
about him: Moses, David, Isaiah, Hosea, Micah, Habakkuk,
Zephaniah, Zechariah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Christ and His
disciples. (m) Answer to those who have blamed the prescrip-
tions of Islam. (/*) Answer to those who are shocked that the
Prophet should have innovated and changed some prescriptions
of the Torah and the Gospel, (o) Answer to those who pretend
that no one but the Christ has mentioned the Resurrection. (/>)
Conclusion.
In his biblical quotations, the author refers to the version of a
certain " Marcus the Interpreter," of which we are still unable
to find any trace in any other book, either Syriac or Arabic.
Apart from the question of an official edition of the Kur'an
being unknown to Christian writers till the second half of the
eighth century, the idea gathered from the ancient Christian
compositions is in complete agreement with " the theory that
Islam is primarily a political adventure;"1 and as in the Semitic
mind political adventures cannot succeed without some " per-
suasions " to heaven, and " dissuasions " from hell, it is the
merit of the first Caliphs to have so skilfully handled, after their
master and in imitation of " the people of the Book," the spiritual
instrument which was easy and handy and which brought them
such wonderful results. (1st der Islam) " Keineswegs als ein
Religionssystem ins Leben getreten, sondern als ein Versuch
sozialistischer Art, gewissen iiberhandnehmenden irdischen Miss-
standen entgegenzutreten."2
CONCLUSION.
FROM all the above facts and documents, any impartial critic,
interested in the Kur'anic literature of the Muslim world, can
draw his own conclusions. If we may express our opinion, we
would be tempted to say:—
(i) If all signs do not mislead us, very few oracular sentences,
if any, were written in the time of the Prophet. The kind of life
1 D. S. Margoliouth, in Encyclopedia" of Religion and Ethics, VIII,
879.
2H. Grimme. Mohammed, I., Minister, p. 14; Munchen, p. 50.
THE TRANSMISSION OF THE KUR'AN 45
that he led, and the rudimentary character of reading and writing
in that part of the world in which he appeared, are sufficient
witnesses in favour of this view. Our ignorance of the Arabic
language in that early period of its evolution is such that we
cannot even know with certainty whether it had any writing of
its own in Maccah and Madmah. If a kind of writing existed
in these two localities, it must have been something very similar
to the Estrangelo or the Hebraic characters. Ibn Khaldun1
informs us that the people of Taif and Kuraish learnt the " art
of writing " from the Christians of the town of Hirah-, and the
first Kuraishite who learned it was Sufyan b. Umayyah.2 Further,
Hirschfeld3 has already noted that " The Qoran, the text-book
of Islam is in reality nothing but a counterfeit of the Bible;" this
verdict applies in a more accentuated manner to the compilation
of the Kur'an. No disciple of Moses or of Christ wrote the
respective oracles of these two religious leaders in their lifetime,
and probably no such disciple did so in the case of the Prophet.
A man did not become an acknowledged prophet in a short time ;
years elapsed before his teaching was considered worth pre-
serving on parchment. Lammens4 has observed, " Le Prophete
s' etait fait intimer par Allah (Qoran, Ixxv. 16-17) 1'ordre de ne
pas se presser pour editer le Qoran, comme recueil separe. La
precaution etait prudente, etant donne le caractere inconsistant
de certaines revelations."
(2) Some years after the Prophet's death many of his com-
panions, seeing that his cause was really flourishing and gathering
considerable momentum by means of able generals, vied in writing
down, each one in his own sphere, the oracles of their master.
This work gave them prestige, and sometimes high posts which
they could scarcely have obtained otherwise; in this series is
to be included the compilation of Ubayy b. Ka'b, Ibn Mas'ud,
1 Mukaddimah, p. 365 (edit. Beirut).
2 We cannot enter into details on this subject which is a digression from
the Kur'anic theme.
8 New researches into the composition and exegesis of the Qoran,
p. ii.
* Fatima et les filles de Mahomet, p. 113.
46 ALPHONSE MINGANA
'U'thman b. 'Affan, and probably 'Ali b. Abi Talib. When
' Uthman obtained the Caliphate, his version was naturally given
a royal sanction, to the detriment of the three other recensions.
The story of the Kuraishite scribes who were told by 'Uthman
to write down the Revelation in the dialect of Kuraish, ought ito
be discarded as half legendary. We all know how ill adapted
was the Arabic writing even of the eighth century to express all
the phonetic niceties of the new philological schools;1 it is highly
improbable, therefore, that it could express them in the first
years of the Hijrah. Moreover, a very legitimate doubt can be
entertained about the literary proficiency of all the collectors
mentioned in the tardy hadlth of the ninth century. Most of
them were more tribal chieftains than men of literature, and
probably very few of them could even read or write; for this
reason the greater part of their work must have been accom-
plished by some skilled Christian or Jewish amanuensis, converted
to Islam.
(3) This last work of Companions and Helpers does not seem
to have been put into book form by 'Uthman, but was written on
rolls of parchment, on suhufs, and it remained in thajt state till
the time of Abdul-Malik and Hajjaj ibn Yusuf. At this time,
being more familiar with writing by their intercourse with the
Jews and Christians of the enlightened capital of Syria, and
feeling more -acutely the necessity of competing on even terms
with them, the Caliph and his powerful lieutenant, gave to those
rolls the character and the continuity of a book, and very
possibly, added new material from some oral reciters of the
Prophet's oracular sentences. At any rate, the incident of both
Hajjaj and 'Uthman writing copies of the Kur'an and sending
them to the head-provinces is very curious. We will conclude
the first chapter of this enquiry with the following sentences by
Professor Casanova1 to which we fully adhere :
" Mais les fragments d'os, de palmier, etc., sur lesquels etaient
ecrits, de la main des secretaires, les versets dictes par le
Prophete, et qui avaient servi a la premiere recension, sous Abou
1 Ibid., pp. 141-142.
THE TRANSMISSION OF THE KUR'AN 47
Bakr, que sont-ils devenus ? Je me refuse a croire qu' ils auraient
ete detruits. Quel extraordinaire sacriliege! Comment aurait-on
pu traiter ainsi ces te*moins les plus directs de la revelation.
Enfin s'ils avaient existe*, comment expliquer la crainte que
'Oumar et Abou Bakr t^moignerent de voir le Goran disparaitre
par la mort des recitateurs ? S'ils n 'avaient pas existe, tous les
passages si nombreux ou le Coran est designe (par le mot Kitab]
auraient ete introduits apres coup! Voila bien des contradictions
inherentes an recit traditionnel, et toutes se resolvent par la
conclusion que j'adopte: Le Coran a ete mis, par ecrit, pour la
premiere fois par les soins d' al Hajjaj qui probablement
s'appuyait sur la legende d'un prototype du a 'Outhman. II est
possible qu'ily ait eu des transcriptions anterieures, mais sans
caractere officiel, et par consequent sans unite."
THE ORIGIN OF CHINESE WRITING
By E. H. PARKER, M.A.
IN the course of a lecture delivered in the John Rylands
Library on the loth March, 1915, my colleague, Dr. G. Elliot
Smith, Professor of Anatomy, touched upon China's suscepti-
bility in the hoary past to " the influence of ancient Egyptian
civilisation in the Far East and in America." The particular
point upon which I gather from later remarks that he is desirous
of obtaining an opinion from somebody who has made a special
study of Chinese is when and how writing was first invented in
China or introduced into that country. Upon this subject much
has of course been written since the first Jesuits began the work
three hundred years ago; and above all as the result of a more
systematic application to the language by missionaries and foreign
officials during the past hundred years. What I have myself
ventured to write from time to time about the antiquity of
definite Chinese history has been of a nature even more sceptical
than the view adopted by Dr. Elliot Smith; but, as he includes
America in the regions probably affected (by way of China)
by the flood of culture carried eastward by the Phoenicians, I
may perhaps first be allowed to digress for a moment in order to
point out that the Chinese themselves have " persistent tradi-
tions " of a mysterious country very far away to the east, and there
have not been lacking sanguine foreign translators to " prove "
similarities in language and customs between the Red Indian
tribes and the different Chinese groups. In order to satisfy my-
self as far as possible upon this point, I visited the museums of
British Columbia and Mexico during the summer and autumn of
1894, and I must confess that I saw much that was " sugges-
tive," alike from an ethnological, a linguistical. and a literary
49
50 E. H. PARKER
point of view. For instance, I closely examined the inscriptions
on the great stone of the cathedral, visited Chapultepec and the
Aztec inscriptions, Ixtepalapan and the Coronai Museum, and
even hunted up two local savants named Dr. Alfredo Clavero
and Dr. Antonio Penafiel who were reputed to possess certain
keys. Some of the hieroglyphical systems I examined were yiet
undeciphered, and strongly resemble the specimens published in
the reprint of Dr. Elliot Smith's lecture; but those of Yucatan
and Tlaxcala might easily have been— at a distance — mistaken
for Chinese inscriptions. Certainly there appears to me to be
more prima facie ground for connecting these with Chinese
as now written than for connecting the Akkadian and Sumerian
hieroglyphs with ancient as well as modern Chinese forms as
thte learned Dr. C. J. Ball has within the past twenty years so
laboriously attempted to do, not to speak of the effort to
assimilate spoken words as well as written signs. But from
first to last I never succeeded in obtaining any tangible evidence
in any one of the three departments—ethnological, linguistical, or
literary.
To return now from this digression to the main question of
ancient Chinese writing. Within the past few years a mass of
entirely new evidence has been discovered in the shape of
numerous bone inscriptions, unearthed chiefly in the true " Central
Kingdom " of Old China. The whole question has rbeen carefully
gone into by Mr. L. C. Hopkins, I.S.O., in a series of papers
contributed to the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society from
the year 1911 onwards. The meaning of these bone inscriptions
is as uncertain as their date; but, whether connected with divina-
tion, dynastic successions, or family records, it seems clear that
they exhibit little or nothing in the direction of sustained thought
or connected history. Mr. Hopkins, who is an old consular
colleague of mine and one of the very few who have made a
speciality of the study of ancient Chinese script, declared also,
in a lecture delivered a few years ago before the China Society,
that " perhaps no recorded or existing Chinese inscription can
be assigned a date earlier than 1500 B.C." However that may
be, this most ancient period of about a hundred pictographic
THE ORIGIN OF CHINESE WRITING 51
signs gradually reinforced by perhaps four hundred more ideo-
graphic characters endured without much local variation down to
the year 827 B.C. or thereabout. When I isay " local," I mean
within the then very limited inland state confined to the valley of
the Lower Yellow River. It is pretty well agreed by all who
have made a serious study of Chinese records that true con-
nected history with definite dates for definite events is entirely
unconcerned with maritime experiences, and only begins with
the revolution, republic, and reconstitution of the comparatively
small inland empire in 841-828 B.C., up; to which date its only
foreign, political, and trade experiences were with the menacing
Tartar nomads. That public opinion did then really assert itself for
the first time seems evident from the fact that the interregnum
period (841-828) was characterised as Kung-ho or " together har-
monising," a term freely used within the past five years to denote
" the republic," " republican principles," or, in a more restricted
sense, one of the rival parties clamouring for power in orde|r that
the min-kwoh or " popular state " — ultimately the officially
adopted name for " republic "—might be guided by a particular
shade of democratic ideas grounded on ancient precedent. The
term chung-hing, or " intermediate flourishing," was applied to
the restoration period beginning 827 B.C., and this term has ever
since been officially applied to " restorations," in our own English
historical sense, whenever dynastic "continuity" has been broken :
its latest (perhaps irregular) use was after the flight of the Em-
peror to Jehol in 1861, when a regency of Empress-Dowager,
protecting a weak successor, found itself threatened by the
T'aip'ing rebellion. During the reign of the first Emperor of
this earliest restoration of 821 B.C., a historiographer named Chou
or rather Djou— not the same etymological initial or word as the
then ruling dynasty of Chou — introduced a new phonetic system
of writing, a great improvement upon the old hieroglyphs and
pictographs, reinforced by ideographs, which only suggested
sounds and ideas. His " book " or vocabulary, consisting of
fifteen bamboo or wooden " chapters," cannot have exceeded
about one thousand characters in all, and this estimate is made
from the number used in the actual or recorded documents that
52 E. H. PARKER
have come down to us written in that character, many specimens
of which still survive in the shape of vases, drinking-vessels,
sacrificial tripods, and commemorative bowls, one especially fine
instance of the last-named being at this moment visible to the
public in the Victoria and Albert Museum together with trans-
lation, history, and arguments.
It is now that real history, accompanied by effective if limited
writing, really begins, and with it the period of material progress
and local autonomy. It must be remembered that this " Old
China " still only meant the northern half of what we| now call
" China proper; " its present provinces were then six or seven
" powers " or practically independent states under the purely
nominal control of the resuscitated emperors; a few minor and
less independent states clustered and intrigued around them.
Writing was a laborious and clumsy art even in its improved
phonetic form, and " books " were rare and heavy objects
made up of strips strung together at one end like (and
probably the indirect origin of) bamboo fans; ordinary
business was conducted by slips each containing a dozen
or so of characters, the form of which was apt to differ slightly
in each state. Confucius' celebrated Annals (c. 480 B.C.) the first
real definite history ever attempted in China was a laconic record
of events in his own state so far as they led him to observations
on and relations with other states, including the imperial state or
limited area under direct imperial rule. There is reason to
believe that all the other states kept similar annals, and portions
of the same, in fact, have been dug up from graves at various
comparatively modern times. Confucius and his rival Laocius
of the Imperial Court probably did not make use of 2,500
separate characters between them. Confucius' history, which
covers a retrospective period of about 250 years, is scarcely
literature, though the three largely amplified commentaries upon
it (published several centuries later) which are usually meant
when people speak of Confucius' celebrated Annals, are decidedly
interesting and readable. I have read the whole three carefully
each twice over, carefully annotating them: the definiteness and
THE ORIGIN OF CHINESE WRITING 53
comparative precision of matter and composition fairly entitle
them to the term " literary style."
There can be no doubt that during the period 820-220 B.C.
the total number of Written characters had increased from 1,000
to over 3,000, for 3,300 were collected in a book. Education was
widely spread; that is, the limited ruling classes broadened their
base, cultivated literary treasures, consulted the oracles, and saw
to it that the mercantile, industrial, and agricultural commons
possessed at least a knowledge of written character sufficient for
the ordinary business purposes of life, including the learning off
by heart of moral maxims and principles of decency. If no
household specimens have come down to us as (only in very
recent years) with the Egyptian papyri and Babylonian clay, it is
largely because wood and bamboo are so perishable by fire1 and
rot.
After the uniting of the contending feudatories and imperial
appanage into one centralised state in B.C. 213, the conqueror
and his ministers naturally inclined to favour the use of their own
variety of script when it became a question of deciding which form
of writing each word should be adopted as the standard. Weights
and measures, cart-wheel axles, and political ideas were all
thenceforward to be organised and standardised. It is highly
probable that (as with the Egyptian demotic writing) scribes,
whose daily business led them to deal with numerous oracular,
administrative, or mercantile matters, had long quietly and em-
pirically indulged in a kind of short-hand among themselves and
their colleagues of other states, which process would lead naturally
to a general simplification of the more formal mode of writing in
the elaboration of which, we are told, two of the conqueror's
ministers and a private scholar took independent parts. Shortly
after that an anonymous " village teacher " unified these three in
a book of 3,300, as just stated. In his eagerness to begin universal
Knltur afresh, this imperial founder of a Chinese Wellmacht
proceeded to call in and destroy not only as much of the ancient
literature as he could lay his hands on, but also the philosophers,
scholars, and politicians who opposed his innovations on the
54 E. H. PARKER
ground that the sages of antiquity had taught wiser and better
things. Thus it comes about that even those portions of genuine
old classical writings rummaged for and patched up from memory
a generation or more after the tyrant's death and after the total
collapse of his short-lived dynasty are open to suspicion as to
their genuineness and accuracy, as few persons could even
decipher, let alo-ne explain, the old texts, whilst ninety-nine hun-
dredths of the so-called original literature covered by the
thousand or so of Djou's phonetic characters had disappeared
for ever.
The Han dynasty in its western and eastern divisions
practically covered a period of 400 years, i.e., the first 200 years
before and the second 200 years after the beginning of our
Christian era. These 400 years were exceedingly active in a
military as well as in a literary sense. The first dictionary (as
distinct from mere vocabularies) was published about 220 A.D.
and contained over ^9,000 words. Not only was the written
character further developed and made easier to write, but the
hair ink-brush came into general use instead of the scratcher or
style and the rough bamboo paint-brush; paper was invented;
various special guide-books and vocabularies were made; distant
military posts were \established, and expresses conveyed des-
patches rapidly from ione end of the empire to the other; the
dominions of China were enlarged by discovery so as gradually
to include under direct administration the whole of the coasts
and nine-tenths of ,the present interior; and, in addition to all
this, Chinese indirect influence was extended to Mongolia, Man-
churia, Corea and Japan; Turkestan was subdued, and China
was brought into political contact with the Indo-Scythian empire
of the Afghanistan region, the Parthian empire to the west of it,
and even with the Syrian portions of the Roman empire.
Buddhism was first introduced by land, not by sea, and Indian
priests gave Chinese translators of the sutra their first notions
of initials, rough syllabic spelling, and scientific arrangement of
sounds; but at no period does the Chinese literary taste seem
to have been in the remotest degree affected by foreign importa-
tions, even though Buddhistic ideas may have been assimilated;
THE ORIGIN OF CHINESE WRITING 55
nor have the Chinese writers ever given the smallest hint that
the form of their script owed any thing in the way of inception,
change, or improvement to examples or suggestions from abroad :
in fact, they never even heard of any rival writing system or
conceived the possible existence of any except their own until
they were brought into political contact with the Indo-Scythians
(whence India) and the Syrians (whence Rome).
When the modified forms of Djou's ta-chuan, or " greater
engravings,"1 were, in 200 B.C., simplified, as above explained,
into the siao-chuan, or "lesser engravings," it was found as we
have seen that the total number of characters up to then in use
had increased to 3,300, and this, of course, covers the whole
range of Chinese literature up to that date. Thus any supposed
Babylonian effect say, in B.C. 600 (even if it existed at all) could
only in any case be looked for in connection with the 400 to
1,000 (¥V to TJ-ff of the number now existing), or even merely
in connection with the one hundred primary characters (^6 of
the number now existing).
Professor Elliot Smith lays stress upon the provisional conclu-
sion that " many of the fundamental conceptions of Indian,
Chinese, Japanese, and American civilisation were planted in
their respective countries by the great cultural wave which set out
from the African coast not long before the sixth century, B.C."
So far a,s China is concerned, it must not be overlooked that
however enterprising Phoenician (i.e., Syriatn) pioneers may have
been, it could not possibly have been Chinese civilisation as
above roughly outlined with which they came into contact, for
the Chinese themselves only began to grope their waiy by sea
along the more northerly coasts from the Yangtsze mouths to-
wards Canton and Tonquin after the destruction and reconstruc-
tion of the only literature recording evidences of that civilisation.
The Japanese (as admitted by Baron Kikuchi) had no letters
of any kind previous to the seventh century A.D. In Confucius'
1 Foreign writers have usually adopted the term " great seal " and " lesser
seal " because to this day official seals of office are generally engraved in
one or the other form of ancient character quite indecipherable by the uneducated
public.
56 E. H. PARKER
time, South " China " and the coasts of " China " were as
totally unknown to the only nation in the Far East possessing
a written character capable of registering definite events as were
Northern Europe and the Atlantic ports to the Romans of that
same date, whose civilisation and development in most respects
moved along lines parallel with those of the Chinese. In both
cases the stimulus seems to have been chiefly improvement in
the writing and recording art. True, South China was
populated almost certainly by " tonic " and " monosyllabic "
races akin to the Chinese, and no doubt some of these
races (of whose doings there is no atom of record) were
apt sesamen and fishermen, possibly even trading with the Japan
islands. Moreover, it is clearly shown by the Chinese records
that when Chinese junks did begin to find their way to Indo-
China .and gradually beyond, they found dotted along the coasts
all the way from Java, to Siam, Burma, etc., and to China, trading
settlements of unmistakably Indian, and probably or at least
possibly also Arab, Phoenician, Syrian, provenance. The way
once found, progress was rapid, and by the Antonines' time we
find the Chinese, who had already been introduced to the sutra
by land, also affected by Buddhism coming along the sea routes;
we find also trade in full swing all over the Indian Ocean, and
the very name of Antori$us\ recorded in Chinese history as the
(probably unwitting) sender of a diplomatic or trade mission,
apparently by way of modern Rangoon.
Our old friend the " unspeakable Turk " would probably be
surprised to find himself hailed in the twentieth century as one
of nature's chief civilisers in the past, but it seems none the less
a fact from the absolutely clear statements of unimpeachable
Chinese records that one and the same race, speaking dialects
of one and the same basic language, has under the various
names of Scythian, Hiung-nu, Hun, Kushan, Ephthalite, Turk,
Ouigour and Mongol, always been the sole connecting link by land
between the Eastern and Western civilisations. The early Chinese
called them a " horse-back " nation, and said that to them " a
country" meant " to be mounted." Through mythical times, semi-
historical times, historical times, down to our own times, these same
THE ORIGIN OF CHINESE WRITING 57
horsemen under different tribal appellations derived from warlike
heroes' names or from personal peculiarities, topical associations,
and so on, have swept between the Volga and the Yaluh, their
fighting numbers at no time exceeding half-a-million or so of
cavaliers, generally broken up into rival " powers," but occa-
sionally under one supreme chief; sometimes swooping upon
China, at others upon Persia and the settled Persian offshoots
of Turkestan ; and again upon Greece, the Greek offshoots of Asia
Minor, Bactria, etc., and the Roman Empire. These plundering
armies needed no baggage or commissariat. They might or
might not elect on any one expedition to take along their tents,
carts, families, and flocks, or any part of them; but they were
in no way bound by necessity to take anything biit their arms,
so long as grass and water were available for their horses, which
provided them at a pinch with ail the meat and kumiss (milk)
they required.
It is not suggested that they ever carried in either direction
any literature with them ; but, making raids upon so many settled
nations, and carrying off so many captives with their plunder,
they must have carried many active ideas from Europe to Asia,
and vice versa. No one had the faintest notion until thirty years
ago that the ancient Turkish language and even parts of Turkish
history could be entirely reconstructed from bilingual stone inscript-
ions still standing on Chinese territory, or that the Turks originally
came from the borders of China, and that their name only dates
from 500 A.D. and refers to a metal-working tribe of Hiung-nu, the
last-named themselves — as also their kinsmen the Avars — con-
nected with China, being in every way similar in manners to the
Scythians of Greek authors and the Huns of Latin authors. For
1,000 years Turkish inscriptions have been gazed at by millions
but have been noticed by none, forgotten even by the Turks.
Indian literature, in Sanskrit, either pure or Tibetan, and Pali,
was the only foreign script the Chinese ever seriously concerned
themselves with. They knew of various " Tartar " scripts in
vSyria, Bactria, etc., but there seems to be ,no record or even
tradition of their ever having critically examined them; nor is
there the faintest shade of a tradition that the earliest Chinese
58 E. H. PARKER
pictographs (denoting objects) and ideographs (denoting abstract
ideas) had any connection with any Mesopotamia!! writing, whether
pictorial, " ideal," phonetic, or alphabetic. The Chinese never even
noticed with literary curiosity that the eighth century Turkish and
Syrian inscriptions, lying alongside their own on the same stone,
and even carved into the stone by Chinese artisans, really meant
something capable of a civilised construction. As the Turkish
alphabet of the eighth century is proveably derived from the
Aramaean or other cognate Syrian, and as the Syrian land trade
direct with China began, as amply recorded, before our era,
we may safely assume that, long before that, there had been
probably for untold centuries caravan trade in short stages
between Syria and China, just as there had been tentative and
increasing stages of Phoenician trade by sea first to the Red Sea,
thence to the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, long before the
two extreme ends reached by the pioneers in each direction
became aware of the continuity.
Thus the conclusion we arrive at is that Dr. Elliot Smith's theory
is correct so far as it goes, but that land and \vater influences
must be counted with, and that land takes precedence in antiquity
over water, the Phoenicians bbing in fact practically the same
persons as the Syrians, and very likely the earliest " pushers,"
in both cases exercising initial pressure from the West towards
the East.
But as to the specific point of invention, is there any real
necessity for persisting in or even assuming that writing was in
remote and " prehistoric " times the exclusive invention of any
one nation or tribe ? Nay, further ; the attempts to prove that
the Chinese derived their primitive pictographs from the Akka-
dians or Sumerians of Babylonia seem to defeat themselves when
we read in the British Museum guide-book that both these ruling
peoples are " believed to have come from Central Asia, and to
have belonged to the Turanian family of nations," i.e., of
necessity either to the Chinese, or Tibetans, or our equine friends
the Hiung-nu and Scythians, to wit, the Turks. What scientific
ground is there to assume that any nation or race is older than
any other? Every existing man and woman must have had a
THE ORIGIN OF CHINESE WRITING 59
father and mother, and they also must have had parents; and
so on ad injinitum, or at any rate until at least pleistocene and even
pleiocene times. In any case it seems rash to assume connection
or borrowings on the ground that the primitive sounds uttered,
or scratched on a tree, show some similarity. There are only
one pair of legs and one pair of arms to clothe whether we elect
for petticoat, clout, or breeches; and there is and for, say, 250,000
years has been only one kind of throat and nose to speak out of
whether, living remote from each other, we incline towards clicks,
tones, grunts, sniffs, labials, sonants, nasals, surds, or gutturals.
Not to speak of the Neanderthal man, the Heidelberg jaw, and
the Ipswich skeleton, still more recent discoveries (and in point
of time we must not overlook th'e fossil " fabulous " dragons
found in China by a group of trippers accompanied by a genuine
British consul this very year), the most recent human " finds "
distinctly point to complete man, brain-power included, even in
pleiocene times. History is nothing but events, and events
disappear for ever unless they are recorded,1 whether by means
of knotted cords, still used in various parts of China and Tartary,
— and, I might add, in many an English country beer-house, or,
indeed, by every housewife who ties a reminding knot on her
handkerchief, or by means of slashes in a tree, notches in bamboo,
scratching on palm-leaves (as the Banyan bankers may be seen
doing in Singapore to-day), painting on silk, writing on parch-
ment, printing on paper, telegraphing on tape, or " wirelessing "
round the world. It is only a matter of time and practice.
Primitive man probably made one of his greatest discoveries
when he began to conceive definite numbers. As to the mere
act of thinking, hie must have been, for he still is, on the same
plane as the " better-class people " amongst animals, for it is
quite manifest that thinking cannot possibly connote speech of
necessity, inasmuch as those persons born deaf and dumb can
not only think, but " get along " in matters generally as well as
1 One learned German author, writing in English, is struck by the resem-
blance of the English word " record " to the idea of knotted " cords,"
apparently forgetful of the fact that re means " back to " and cors, " mind,"
i.e., " bringing back to the recollection " objectively.
60 E. H. PARKER
ordinary folk. His next step would probably be the development
of speech, which is merely a " short-distance " record of our
thoughts : figuratively a " scrap of paper " as conceived by Kultur.
Primitive man, having at last grasped the idea that his own
tree hole and his own wife were only one set of many similar,
would be led to " record " this and other simple facts more
permanently with his nails, with shells, or with sticks on a tree;
if there were no trees he made a shift with any other handy
material ; for instance, clay ; and advanced a step further when he
found that the sun, later fire, made the clay durable. The
Chinese have plenty of loess. Possibly because it is too friable
to convert into viscous mud, they never seem to have imagined
the virtues of clay " paper," though numerous very hard baked
bricks and tiles, probably not made of loess, contain valuable
ancient " inscriptions " of a terse and limited kind. It was
their ill-luck to choose the most perishable of materials— wood,
bamboos, silk, and paper— and (unless many more bone and
tortoise-shell inscriptions and tomb treasures turn up) one of
the consequences now is that we have few literary antiquities
in China except in stone or bronze. But that circumstance is
far from proving that the Chinese owed any culture to Meso-
potamia, India, or elsewhere, or that their mental capacity
needed foreign stimulus.
By the commencement of our era the Chinese had written two
genuine " world " histories as they knew the world. Take, for
instance, the chapters on the Hiung-nu in both these histories,
about as long as the " Caesar " and " Tacitus " used in our
schools. The Chinese descriptions of the Hiung-nu are in
general grasp marvellously like the Roman descriptions of the
Gauls and Germans. The language and flow of thought is not
only as precise and intelligent, but each sentence may be trans-
lated almost word for word into good Latin of similar terseness
and grip. Although the first dictionary of 9,000 words published
about 200 A.D. contains fewer than half the characters used by first-
class schoolmen after the perfect and refined polish of 1,000
years later, and only one quarter or one fifth of the characters
given in the imperial dictionaries of to-day, the clear and simple
THE ORIGIN OF CHINESE WRITING 61
style of B.C. 90 to A.D. 100 has never been excelled, and it is
excellent reading even to-day, without greater need for a glossary
than we ourselves require for, say, the Shakesperian plays. The
Chinese have never shown any capacity for " applied history,"
but as recorders of bare facts and describers of definite events
they are unequalled for trustworthiness. Have the Egyptians or the
Babylonians ever written anything that one can sit down to read by
the hour consecutively and conscientiously, and enjoy like a novel ?
The thousands of clay and papyrus documents indirectly describing
conquests, family dealings, and so on are of course when pieced to-
gether intensely interesting to our curiosity. But are they literature ?
Is there any " style " or philosophic, logical thought about them ?
x\bove all, have they any " art " or beauty to the imagination
as approached through the eye ? If a nation can struggle during
a total period of 500 years out of its bald annals scratched on
laconic slips, create an argumentative philosophy worth destroy-
ing, repair that destruction, rise " like a phoenix from the ashes,"
and achieve the highest degree of artistic calligraphic and
literary taste, charming to the eye, unfettered by " grammar,"
and good for any spoken language, what need is there to charge
upon its mental capacity an imaginary debt to the Egyptians and
Babylonians ?
So far as evidence takes me personally, I think the " mono-
syllabic, tonic, and nasal " peoples, now assimilated more or less
finally and completely into one whole by the superior tribe of the
Yellow River, have probably been there for countless ages, and
have worked out their own elementary script, no other nation
within a thousand-mile radius of them having given them any
evidence of rival records at all up to, say, 150 B.C. Roman
literary development covers the same dates — say, 700 to 50 B.C. —
and both in time and in quality the uncouth Twelve Tables bear
much the same relation to " Caesar " and " Tacitus " that the
Annals of pre-Confucian times bear to the splendid histories of
Sz-ma Ts'ien and Pan Ku just alluded to. As ideas advanced, East
and West, the hor^e-riding nomads, ever scouring the vast
prairies between the Danube and the Yuluh, would (quite uninten-
tionally) bring rumours and hints, if nothing more solid: at
62 E. H. PARKER
the same time the Phoenicians must have done likewise by sea;
but later, less directly, and in shorter stages. In comparing the
hundred or so of elementary characters, the later 400 ideographs,
the 1,000 phonetics, the 3,300 simplified (each successive group of
course including the earlier) with the Babylonian, such comparison
must take into account and show clearly similar progressive
dates of the Babylonian script, and also the probable sound given
by the Chinese to the particular character 2,500 years ago. Of
course we must also make as sure as possible of the Babylonian
sound, the context, etc. In this connection it may well be useful
to refer those interested to Mr. L. C. Hopkins' four papers (Dec.
1914, Jan., Feb., and March, 1915) contributed to the Journal
of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, in which he bestows
an unprejudiced criticism upon the Rev. C. J. Ball's Chinese and
Sumerian. About twenty years ago I myself wrote one or two
notices upon Dr. Ball's " Accadian Affinities of Chinese " in
Vol. XXII. of the China Review, so the subject is not altogether
new to me. But I am a sceptic, and in any case I consider
Dr. Ball's methods unsound.
JOURNAL
OF THE
MANCHESTER EGYPTIAN AND ORIENTAL
SOCIETY
PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
(H. M. MCKECHNIE, SECRETARY)
12 LIME GROVE, OXFORD ROAD, MANCHESTER
LONGMANS, GRBEN AND CO.
LONDON: 39 PATERNOSTER ROW
NEW YORK : 443-449 FOURTH AVENUE
AND THIRTIETH STREET
CHICAGO: PRAIRIE AVENUE
AND TWENTY-FIFTH STREET
BOMBAY: HORNBY ROAD
CAICUTTA: 6 OLD COURT HOUSE STREET
MADRAS : 167 MOUNT ROAD
JOURNAL OF THE MANCHESTER
J s
EGYPTIAN AND ORIENTAL
SOCIETY
Vol. 6
1916—1917
MANCHESTER
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
12 LIME GROVE, OXFORD ROAD
LONGMANS, GREEN & CO.
LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, ETC.
1917
CONTENTS
PACK
List of Officers and Members of the Society ..... 6
Objects of the Society . . 7
Statement of Receipts and Expenditure 8
Position of the Society at the end of Session 1916-17 . . 9
Proceedings of the Session 12
Mr. A. M. Blackman on Egyptian Conceptions of Immortality . 12
Prof. G. Elliot Smith on Sidelights on the Aryan Problem . 15
Miss M. A. Murray on Egypt and the Holy Grail . . 15
Dr. Berlin on Hebrew Assonance in the Old Testament . . 16
Dr. A. Mingana on the Odes of Solomon . . . .17
Books and Pamphlets received since September, 1916 . . . 18
Special Papers and Articles :
James Hope Moulton as an Iranian Scholar. By L. C. Casartelli 25
Dr. Moulton's Hellenistic Seminar. By H. McLachlan . . 29
The Text of Judges xvii-xviii. By M. H. Segal ... 33
The God of the Witches. By M. A. Murray ... 49
The Sun of Righteousness. By Maurice A . Canney . . 67
Reviews ............ 71
1. By M. A. Murray . . . . . . . .71
2. By Maurice A. Canney ....... 72
3. By W. H. Bennett . ... -73
MANCHESTER EGYPTIAN AND ORIENTAL SOCIETY
SESSION 1916-17
List of Officers and Members
President
The Right Rev. THE BISHOP OF SALFORD (L. C. CASARTELLI, D.Litt.Or., D.D.)
Vice- Presidents
The Vice-Chancellor of the University (Sir HENRY MIERS, M.A., Ph.D., D.Sc., F.R.S.)
The Right Rev. THE LORD BISHOP OF
A. H. GARDINER, D.Litt.
JESSE HAWORTH, LL.D.
W. EVANS HOYLE, M.A., D.Sc., M.R.C.S.
Professor E. H. PARKER, M.A.
Professor A. H, PEAKE, M.A., D.D.
Professor G. ELLIOT SMITH. M.A., M.D.
F.R.S.
eight Kev
LINCOLN (E. L. HICKS, D.D.)
F. A. BRUTON, M.A.
Principal R. M. BURROWS, D.Litt. (King's
College, London)
S. H. CAPPER, M.A.
Professor T. W. RHYS DAVIDS, LL.D.,
Ph.D., F.B.A.
Hon. Professor W. BOYD DAWKINS, M.A.,
D.Sc., F.R.S.
Other Members of the Council
Professor Sir T. H. HOLLAND, K.C.I. E.,
D.Sc., F.R.S.
Mrs. W. HARTAS JACKSON
Rev. H. S. LEWIS, M.A.
THE LIBRARIAN OF THE RYLANDS
LIBRARY (Mr. H. GUPPY, M.A.)
Principal MARSHALL, M.A., D.D.
Ven. Archdeacon ALLEN, M.A.
Rev. C. L. BEDALE M.A.
Principal W. H. BENNETT, M.A., D.D.
icipal v
Litt.D.
Professor M. A. CANNEY, M.A.
Mrs. RHYS DAVIDS, M.A.
Professor A. C. DICKIE, M.A., F.S.A.,
F.R.I.B.A.
Miss CAROLINE HERFORD, M.A.
Mrs. HOPE W. HOGG, M.A.
Rev. J. A. MEESON, M.A., LL.B.
T. ERIC PEET, M.A.
W. M. TATTERSALL, D.Sc.
Rev. W. L. WARDLE, M.A., B.D.
Honorary Secretaries
Professor M. A. CANNEY, M.A. (Editor-Secretary)
Miss W. M. CROMPTON (Treasurer-Secretary)
Sir FRANK FORBES ADAM
P. J. ANDERSON
S. ARCHER-BETHAM
Dr. ASHWORTH
Dr. C. J. BALL
J. R. BARLOW
Miss A. E. F. BARLOW
C. H. BICKERTON
Dr. J. S. BLACK
G. BONNERJEE
Miss E. E. BOUGHEY
R. A. BURROWS
Miss M. BURTON
Wm. BURTON
Professor W. M. CALDER
Mrs. CANNEY
Mrs. CAWTHORNE
Miss CAWTHORNE
F. O. COLEMAN
Professor R. S. CONWAY
Dr. DONALD CORE
Other Members of the Society
R. H. CROMPTON
Professor T. W. DAVIES
Miss DAVISON
W. J. DEAN
C. W. DUCKWORTH
Mrs. ECKHARD
M. H. FARBRIDGE
Col. PHILIP FLETCHER
Mrs. PHILIP FLETCHER
Miss K. HALLIDAY
F. J. HARDING
J. S. HARDMAN
Mrs. JESSE HAWORTH
H. A. HENDERSON
MissMONICA HEYWOOD
Professor S. J. HICKSON
Miss JACKSON
Canon C. H. W. JOHNS
Miss E. F. KNOTT
J. H. LYNDE
Rev. H. M. McLACHLAN
J. MAGUIRE
E. MELLAND
Dr. ALPHONSE MINGANA
B. RODRIGUEZ-PEREIRA
Mrs. ROBINOW
Miss M. ROEDER
H. LING ROTH
J. PADDOCK SCOTT
Mrs. SALIS SIMON
Rev. D. C. SIMPSON
Mrs. ELLIOT SMITH
Rev. W. T. STONESTREET
Rev. W. THOMAS
T. G. TURNER
Rev. J. BARTON TURNER
Professor G. UN WIN
H. WELD-BLUNDELL
Miss K. WILKINSON
G. S. WOOLLEY
OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY
(i.) To discuss questions of interest with regard to the
languages, literatures, history and archaeology of
Egypt and the Orient.
(ii.) To help the work of the excavating societies in any
way possible.
(iii.) To issue, if possible, a Journal. If this is not possible,
to print at least a Report, including abstracts of the
papers read at the meetings of the Society.1
SUBSCRIPTIONS
(a) For ordinary members, 55. per annum (student mem-
bers, 2s. 6d.).
(b) For Journal members, los. 6d., of which 55. 6d. is
assigned to the Special Publications Fund.
Subscriptions are due in January.
PUBLICATIONS
Journal of the Manchester Oriental Society for 1911,
published 1912 ... ... ... ... ... 55. od. net.
Journal of the Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society
for 1912, published 1913; for 1913, published 1914;
for 1914, published 1915; for 1915, published 1916;
for 1916, published 1917 ... 5s.od.net.
The more important articles can be purchased separately.
Manchester Egyptian Association Report, 1909-1912 ... each os. 3d. net.
Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society Report, 1912-13,
1913-14, 1914-15 ... ... ... .. ... is.6d.net.
List of Books on Egyptology published September, 1912, to
September, 1913, and Catalogue of Library of the
Society ... ... ... ... ... ... os. 6d. net.
New Members can buy back numbers at half-price.
1 There is a Special Publications Fund, for which subscriptions and donations are invited.
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REPORT
OF THE
MANCHESTER EGYPTIAN AND ORIENTAL SOCIETY
1917
POSITION OF THE SOCIETY
AT END OF SESSION 1916-17
SINCE the last Report was issued the Society has re-
ceived a heavy blow in the death of its past President,
Dr. James Hope Moulton, through exposure at sea after
the torpedoing by an Austrian submarine of the steamer
on which he was returning from India. His friend, Dr.
Rendel Harris, who fortunately survived the ordeal, has
made known the fortitude with which Dr. Moulton en-
dured the circumstances of peculiar horror through which
the party passed, until he at length succumbed, and was
buried at sea. As for the loss which we, and not only
we, but Christianity and scholarship in general, have
sustained, others have written in our Journal (pp. 25, 29).
Dr. Moulton had, however, been President of this Society
for a year before he left for India. We must all, I think, feel
grateful for this fact, and for the opportunity it gave us
of coming into closer contact with his attractive and benign
personality, and the Secretaries cannot but wish to record
their sense of the special privilege which' their office gave
io REPORT
them in this respect. Probably members in general will
agree that one of the pleasantest hours in the records of the
Society was that occasion on October 5th, 1914, when Dr.
Moulton was elected President (vice Professor Rhys Davids
retiring). One of the happiest points of our Society is that
it forms an occasion for the harmonious 'meeting1 of men of
the most varied opinions, united by their interest in scholar-
ship, and never was this better shown than in the speeches,
so obviously sincere, and showing such genuine admiration
and friendship, delivered on this occasion. One more death
has to be recorded — that of Mr. R;. B. Woods, a member
since 1910, who always took a keen interest in the affairs
of the Society. He was a man o/f a type of which Lancashire
is proud to think she produces more than fhe average — the
intellectual artisan, who in the midst of hard manual
labour finds time to read and think. A man of deep
religious feeling and an Evangelist of the Independent
Methodist Connexion, it was his interest in the Bible which
drew him to our Society, and he was a member of the
little Study Circle, to which the founder of the Oriental
Society, the late Professor Hogg, so kindly gave many
of his leisure hours in the last years of his life. As
our original members pass away, may new ones arise to
carry on their work!
As to the ordinary routine of the Society— the number of
members is 91. There have been four resignations and
two deaths during the year.
The number of meetings has been five. The three held in
the afternoon were fairly well attended, but the audience at
the two evening meetings was very poor; this is the more
to be regretted as the lecturers were in both cases address-
ing us for the first time, and those who were present found
them worthy of the keenest attention. It is to be hoped that
they may be prevailed on to address us again ere long, and
that we may assemble in greater numbers.
REPORT ii
The number of books and pamphlets added to our
collection is thirty-two. This includes the periodicals we
exchange with various societies. The most important addi-
tions are Le Revue de VHistoife des Religions, vol. LXXII.,
1915, presented by Le Musee Guimet, Paris, in exchange for
our Journal, and Persia, Past and Present, by A. V. W.
Jackson, presented by the Rev. W. Fiddian Moulton in
memory of his brother, our late President, to whose library
it belonged.
Mr. Grafton Milne has most kindly presented us with
twenty of his articles on Coins and other subjects con-
nected with Grseco-Roman Egypt. This is a welcome
strengthening of our collection in a direction in which it
was weak. A complete list of iadditions will be found on
p. 1 8.
Miss M. A. Murray, of University College, London, most
kindly volunteered to fill the gap caused by the absence
of our University lecturer, Mr. T. E. Peet, on military duty,
and delivered courses of lectures on Egyptian History and
Language during the winter. These were, unfortunately,
but very poorly attended, war work and illness preventing
the presence of many previous students.
As to our Journal, it is encouraging to note that the sale
of the number for 1912-13 has been sufficient to recoup the
University Press for the £$ which they are always pre-
pared to expend on its production, and has also enabled
them to return to us a few shillings of the £25 contributed
by us for the same end. The sales of the numbers since pub-
lished have so far been less, owing to the war, whilst the
expenses are constantly increasing.
A most welcome and timely donation of ^5 from Mrs.
Philip Fletcher enables us to issue again a fair-sized journal.
It is much to be wished, however, that more subscribers of
REPORT
larger sums than the minimum of IDS. 6d., necessary for
Journal membership, may be forthcoming. Until this is the
case, or the membership increases largely, the position of
the Journal will remain precarious.
W.M.C.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE SESSION
1916 — 1917
THE First Meeting of the Session was held at the University
on November 3rd, 1916, the Bishop of Salford in the chair.
Before the Society proceeded to other business, Professor
Elliot Smith expressed the sorrow felt by its members at the
death of Sir Gaston Maspero. The passing away of this
great Egyptologist and Orientalist was a loss to scholarship
of which the Society took sad note. The speaker proposed
a resolution, which was seconded by Mrs. Hogg, and it was
decided to send a message of condolence to Sir Gaston
Maspero's relatives. The Treasurer-Secretary then read a
report on the position of the Society down to August 6th,
1916. The Meeting proceeded to elect or re-elect officers.
The Bishop of Salford (Dr. L. G. Casartelli) was elected
President ; Principal W. H. Bennett was elected a member
of the Council ; the other officers and the members of the
Council were re-elected.
The President then called upon Mr. Aylward M. Blackman,
M.A., to give his address on " Egyptian Conceptions of Im-
mortality." Mr. Blackman said he used the plural " Concep-
tions " because the beliefs of the Egyptians were so
numerous and at the same time so conflicting. Proofs of
the existence of the belief in a future life are found in
the burial-customs of the Proto-Egyptians as early as
4500 B.C. These customs showed that man though dead
REPORT 13
was felt to need still all the paraphernalia of his earthly
existence. Great importance was attached to the preserva-
tion of the body. The dead mi^st possess a body to dwell
in. Since therefore, in spite of every precaution often the
body perished or was destroyed, the sculptor was called in
to fashion an exact likeness in which the soul could take
up its abode. The Egyptian name of the Book of the Dead
is " The Chapters of Coming Forth by Day." It was so
called because it is concerned largely with the belief that
the dead could " go in and out " of the grave " unhindered."
In course of time difficulty was presented in the matter of
supplying the food and other equipment needed for the
graves of the wealthy. This was overcome by calling in
the help of magic. By rnean;s of magic, representations
of the things needed became realities for 'the deceased. This
explains the embellishment of the walls of the tomb-chapels
of the Egyptians with so many varied scenes (slaughtering
of cattle, ploughing, sowing, harvesting, etc.). Under the
influence of this belief in predynastic times clay models of
cattle, boats, and fat women were placed in the grave along
with the corpse of the dead warrior. In the Fourth Dynasty
only the upper classes could afford the luxury] of a sculp-
tured and painted tomb-chapel. In the Sixth Dynasty the
graves of the well-to-do middle class people contain carved
wooden models corresponding to many of the scenes
depicted on the walls of the tomb-chapels of their superiors.
Another conception existing side by side with this is that
the soul might " change itself into all things that the heart
desireth." Thus the soul might fly away as a bird, or
might enter a lotus flower, or a snake, or a crocodile. A
much more advanced conception is that the dead left this
world altogether and departed to a distant country (a sub-
terranean region, " the West "). The chief occupation of
the inhabitants of the Elysian fields (the " Field of Earu ")
was agriculture. This work would not be to the taste
of the upper classes, so they were provided with servants
(magical figures made of stone, porcelain, or wood). On
14 REPORT
his journey to the happy Field of Earu, the deceased would
encounter many dangers. To ward off thesie he was pro-
vided with magical formulae and spells. In the Fifth and
Sixth Dynasties these were engraved on the walls of the
burial chambers in the royal pyramids. Hence what are
called the " Pyramid Texts." During the Middle Kingdom
many of these and other texts were written on the boards of
the coffins of the nobles and officials.1 In the Imperial Age
we find another collection, including many of the " Pyramid "
and Middle Kingdom Coffin Texts, written upon rolls of
papyrus. In the Fifth Dynasty the cult of the Sun-god Re,
the deity of On, became prominent. The; Sun-worshipping
monarchs of this dynasty built great sun-temples in which
the central object of worship was a stone pillar or obelisk,
which was a replica of the Benben stone1 in the temple at
Heliopolis (On), the chief temple of the Sun-god. Sun-worship
became the state religion. This was due to an infusion of
foreign blood (intermarriage with the Armenoid people of
Northern Syria). We now find an entirely different view of
immortality interwoven with the more primitive ideas. At
death the deceased flew up to heaven, where he was united
with the Sun-god and became himself one of the great gods.
But with this Heliopolitan conception is combined the popular
and more ancient belief of an agricultural underworld.
Throughout the later periods of the Middle and New
Kingdoms, as well as in the Saitic and Ptolemaic times,
contradictory notions appear side by side and find equal
acceptance. Another doctrine arose under the extraordinary
influence of the Osiris-Isis myth (possibly derived, in part
at least, from Syria). An attempt was made by the priests
of Re to combine the Osirian legend (resurrection of Osiris)
with the older and quite different beliefs. The dead will
rise in the same fashion as Osiris rose, in a physical
resurrection. His limbs too will be collected together by
the gods. His head will once more be united to his bones
1 See the coffins from " The Tomb of Two Brothers " in the Manchester
Museum.
REPORT 15
and his bones be united ,to his head. And just as Osiris was
summoned before the tribunal of the gods, so also every
deceased person has to undergo a trial before he can be
admitted into the company of the glorified dead.
At the conclusion of the address, which was illustrated
by excellent lantern slides, a vote of thanks was proposed
by Professor Elliot Smith and seconded by Professor
Canney. A discussion followed in which the President,
Professor Canney, and others took part.
THE Second Meeting of the Session was held at the
University on December 6th, 1916, the President (the Bishop
of Salford) in the Chair. Professor Elliot Smith delivered
an addresss on " Sidelights on the Aryan Problem." His
main thesis was the far-reaching influence of Babylonian
beliefs upon early Aryan mythology. The address was
followed by a discussion in which the President and Professor
Conway took part. Its substance, with important additions,
is likely to be published in due course.
THE Third Meeting of the Session was held at the
University on January i6th, 1917, Professor Elliot Smith
in the Chair. Miss M. A. Murray lectured on " Egypt and
the Holy Grail," and sought to prove that that portion of
the Grail Romance which relates to Joseph of Arimathaea
is Egyptian in origin. At the beginning) of the legend the
route taken by Joseph indicates that the whole action
takes place in Egypt. The names of the principal characters
in the story show an Egyptian origin. Further proofs of the
Egyptian origin are to be found in the passages which relate
to the Grail itself and to Josephes. The reference to a
" wooden ark " points to a Christian ceremony, though a
ceremony not in use in the Western Church. In the Coptic
celebration of the Eucharist a wooden ark plays a large
i 6 REPORT
part. Again, in the consecration of Josephes Coptic ritual
may be recognised; and the vestments with which Josephes
was clothed appear to be those inj use in the Coptic and
Byzantine Churches. Another interesting proof of the con-
nection with Egypt, and the derivation both of names and
religious ideas from that country, lies in the name of the
castle in which the Grail was finally housed— Corbenie. The
Arabic Q urban is the usual name in fche Coptic Church for
the Eucharist. Castle Corbenie may therefore be explained
" The House of the Eucharist." The date at which the
Grail legend in its connection with Joseph of Arimathsea
began to be current would seem to have been the early
part of the Eighth Century A.D.*
At the conclusion of the lecture the Chairman thanked
the lecturer on behalf of the Society. He remarked that
in the past few years Miss Murray had advanced several
theories which had seemed bold, but which fresh facts had
done much to confirm. He had himself, as members of
the Society knew, affirmed constantly the immense influence
of Egypt on Britain. Miss Murray's stimulating lecture
raised many interesting points which could not be dis-
cussed, as she had to leave to give another lecture.
THE Fourth Meeting of the Session was held at the Univer-
sity on February I4th, 1917, the Vice-Chancellor of the
University (Sir Henry Miers) in the Chair. Dr. Berlin had
been announced to deliver an address on "Hebrew Asson-
ance and Rhythm in the Old Testament." The speaker
remarked at the outset that the subject as announced was
too large for one address, and askied to be allowed on this
occasion to deal with part of !it. He examined in particular
the question to what extent various kindjs of assonance
are present in the Old Testament writings. Rhyme by
*See further Miss Murray's articles on " The Egyptian Elements
in the Grail Romance" in Ancient Egypt, 1916.
REPORT 17
vowels only, he decided, was hardly noticeable. As regards
ordinary rhyme there are many apparent instances, but the
rhymes are accidental rather than intentional. The lecturer
agreed with Koenig, Cornill, Gray, and others that rhyme
as such is usually avoided. On the other hand, alliteration
is employed frequently, especially by the Prophets. There
are many good and striking examples in the Book of Isaiah.
There are, moreover, a number of alphabetical Psalms, in
which not only does each line begin with a letter of the
alphabet, but there is also alliterative repetition of the letter
in the lines. At the conclusion of the address the Vice-
Chancellor, Principal Bennett, and Professor Canney, in
thanking the speaker, expressed great appreciation. Dr.
Berlin offered to deal with other aspects of the subject in
another address, and the offer was accepted very gladly.
THE Fifth Meeting of the Session was held at the ^University
on March I5th, Mr. R. H. Cromjptbn in the Chair. Dr.
Alphonse Mingana delivered an address on the " Odes of
Solomon." The speaker gave a general survey; of the
problems arising out of the important discovery of what
appears to be the first Christian hymn-book. He then dealt
specially with the Christian character, the data of com-
position, and the original language of the Odes, and with
the relations of the book to the Bible. Reference was made
to a new edition in two volumes, undertaken by the John
Rylands"* Library. The edition has been prepared by Dr.
J. Rendel Harris and the speaker, and is to be published
soon. The date of composition was placed in the period
A.D. 60-200, and the original language was taken to be
Semitic, probably Aramaic. Harnack's hypothesis of a
Jewish composition, interpolated by a Christian hand to-
wards the end of the First Century, was rejected on good
grounds. At the conclusion of the address a vote of
thanks to Dr. Mingana was proposed by the Rev. D. P.
Buckle, and seconded by the Rev. T. Grigg-Smith,
i8 BOOKS & PAMPHLETS
BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS ADDED TO
THE COLLECTION OF THE SOCIETY
SINCE SEPTEMBER 1916
Books may be borrowed (by members only) by applying to the
Treasurer-Secretary at the Manchester Museum, from
whom also the Catalogue published 1913,
may be had, price $d.
The Athenaeum —
Subject Index to Periodicals— Class List, June, 1917—
Theology and Philosophy.1
Biblical Archaeology—
Proceedings of Society of, Vols. 1916 and 1917 to
date.1
Budge, E. A. W.-
"First Steps in Egyptian," pp. 321. London, 1895.2
Carnoy, A. J.—
"Iranian Views of Origins," pp. 21. 191 6.3
"Moral Deities of Iran and India," pp. 21. 1917.
Delitzsch, F.—
"Assyrian Grammar." Trans. London, 1 889.2
Jackson, A. V. Williams—
"Persia, Past and Present," pp. 471, pis. and maps.
New York, 1906.*
BOOKS & PAMPHLETS 19
John Rylands' Library —
Bulletin to Date.1
Liverpool Institute of Archaeology—
" Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology," Vol. VII.,
3-4. July, 1916.!
Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society-
Journal, 1915-1916.
Milne J. Graf ton —
Alexandrian Tetradrachms of Tiberius," pp. 7, pis. i.
London, 1910.
"Alexandrian Coinage of Galba," pp. 11. London,
1909.
"Antony and Cleopatra," p. i, pi. i.
"Clay Sealings from The Fayum," pp. 13. London,
1906.
" Currency of Egypt under Romans to Diocletian,"
pp. 15. London.
" Graeco-Roman Leaden Tesserae from Abydos," pp. 3,
pi. i. London, 1914.
'The Greek Gods in Egypt," pp. 12.
"Greek Inscriptions from Egypt/' pp. 17, figs. n.
London, 1 90 1 .
"Greek and Roman Tourists in Egypt," pp. 5.
"The Hawara Papyri," pp. 19. Leipzig, 1911.
" Hoards of Coins found in Egypt," pp. 8. Leipzig,
1903.
" A Hoard of Constantinian Coins from Egypt," pp.
27. Athens, 1914.
"A Hoard of Persian Sigloi," pp. 12, pi. i. London,
1916.
2o BOOKS & PAMPHLETS
" Leaden Token-Coinage of Egypt under the Ptolemies,"
pp. 24, pi. i. London, 1908.
" The Organisation of the Alexandrian Mint in the
Reign of Diocletian," pp. n. London, 1916.
"Ostraka from Dendereh," pp. 12. Leipzig, 1913.
''Ptolemaic Seal Impressions," pp. 16, pis. 2.
"Relics of Graeco-Egyptian Schools," pp. 12. London,
1908.
"Roman Coin-moulds from Egypt," pp. 12. London,
1905.
"The Sanatorium of Der-el-Bahri," pp. 3, pis. 2.
London, I9I4.5
Musee Guimet—
"Revue de I'Histoire des Religions," Vol. LXXIL, 191 5.*
University of Rome —
"Rivista degli Studi Orientali," Vol. VII., fasc. i
and 2, I9I6.1
University of Uppsala—
" Le Monde Oriental," Vol. X., 1916, nos. i and 2.1
1 Exchange. 2 Presented by Mr. H. Ling Roth.
* Presented by the Bishop of Salford. * Presented by Rev. W. Fiddian Moulton,
* All presented by the Author,
SPECIAL PAPERS
ARTICLES
JAMES HOPE MOULTON AS AN
IRANIAN SCHOLAR
By L. C. CASARTELLI.
THOSE of us who were privileged to be present at the
meeting of our Society on the day before the departure of
our late President for India, and to listen to his deeply
interesting and inspiring address on " Some Problems of
East and West," so full of suggestive illustrations from a
wide and sane survey of philological and ethnological facts,
little thought that it was the last time we should hear the
lecturer's voice and follow his scholarly handling of great
racial problems, as interesting to the politician to-day as to
the student. On the contrary, we looked forward to his
return with a rich harvest of fresh scientific material from
the East, and to sharing largely in the results of his
investigations in a sphere of research which he had made
specially his own. And then came the cruel tragedy of the
sea, "the deep damnation of his taking off," and surely
nowhere outside of his family circle was that loss more
keenly felt than in the ranks of the Society which for two
years had been proud to call him its President.
To the small knot of those specially interested in Iranian
and Avestan studies— in this country almost an infinitesimal
number — the death of Professor Moulton is a quite excep-
tional loss. Of course he was a scholar of manifold
attainments in varied branches, of which I cannot speak.
In Avestan lore he was "a master in Israel," and it is in
this character alone that I am to write a few brief words
26 L. C. CASARTELLI
concerning him. They must be brief, because I have
already written what I had to say in the columns of the
Manchester Guardian, at the time of his death, and in that
estimate I have nothing to change. I noted there that his
charming little book, Early Religious Poetry of Persia (Cam-
bridge University Press, 1911), first gave to the outside
world some knowledge of his capacity as a student of
Avesta and the Avestan religion and promise of more im-
portant work to come. " It is dedicated to the 'piamemoria'
of E. B. Cowell, for it is an interesting fact that Moulton
owed the beginnings of his Avestan scholarship and his
first reading of the Gathas to that remarkable man — the
same inspiring teacher, it will be remembered, who first
taught Edward Fitzgerald Persian and introduced him to
Omar Khayyam."
His chief work in the Iranian field of research, Early
Zoroastrianism, I have already reviewed in this Journal
(1913-1914, pp. 79-81). To that review, again, I must refer
my readers. There are few departments of oriental study
in which more divergence of views still obtains than in
Avestan scholarship. Hence it was inevitable that several
of Dr. Moulton's theories in the volume in question should
have had to meet criticism from other writers. His very
ingenious and cleverly argued theory of the Magi as a
Turanian priesthood and their appropriation and remodel-
ling of primitive Zoroastrianism, brilliant as it is, has not
commanded general assent. Neither has his argument for
a much greater antiquity of Zarathushtra and the Gathas
than recent scholars have held ; nor for the identification of
the Achaemenid royal faith with the Avestan. Personally I
think several of these and kindred questions still await a
final solution; but I am inclined to believe that some of
Professor Moulton's critics were less qualified than himself
to estimate the evidence. None, however, can deny the
profound and solid learning, the well-balanced and sane
judgment which characterised his work. His new transla-
J. H. MOULTON AS AN IRANIAN SCHOLAR 27
tion of the Gathas into English would alone render his
work invaluable.
Professor Moulton's visit to the Parsis in India was, we
may gather, an unqualified success. He gained the esteem
and even affection of all. At their request he delivered
a series of interesting addresses in Bombay on the
" Teaching of Zarathushtra," their great prophet. He was
coming back, no doubt, with a store of valuable material
for the prosecution of his Avestan studies : dis aliter visum.
One unpublished volume, The Treasure of the Magi^ is in
course of publication.1 It will be looked forward to with
keen interest by all students of Zoroastrianism and the
History of Religions in general.
As a brief appendix, I have tried to compile a little
bibliography of Professor Moulton's publications in the
specific field of Iranian scholarship. It has been difficult to
find out all he wrote, and the list, I fear, is very incomplete.
CONTRIBUTIONS BY PROF. J. H. MOULTON
TO IRANIAN SCHOLARSHIP
BOOKS.
The Early Religious Poetry of Persia. Cambridge University
Press, 1911.
Early Zoroastrianism (Hibbert Lectures). London, Williams
and Norgate, 1913.
The Teaching of Zarathushtra. Bombay, P. A. Wadia, 1916.
The Treasure of the Magi. A Study of Modern Zoroastri-
anism (in course of publication). London, Oxford
University Press, 1917.
1 In the series, "The Religious Quest of India," edited by J. N.
Farquahar and H. D. Griswold,
28 CONTRIBUTIONS BY PROF. J. H. MOULTON
ARTICLES.
In Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics: —
"Fravashi," Vol. VI.
"Iranians," Vol. VII.
"Magi," Vol. VIII.
In Third International Congress of the History of Religion : —
"Syncretism as illustrated in the History of Parsism."
(Vol. II., pp. 89-100.)
" It is his Angel." (Journal of Theological Studies > 1902,
pp. 514-527).
"A Zoroastrian Idyll." (Expository Times, 18, XII.)
" The Zoroastrian Conception of a Future Life.*'
(Address at Victoria Institute, 19 April, 1915.)
In The Journal of the Manchester Egyptian and Oriental
Society:
" Remarks on Dr. Gray's paper on Iranian Materials in
the Acta Sanctorum." (1913-1914, pp. 1 1 sq.)
"Some Problems of East and West." (Abstract of
address: 1915-16, pp. 11 sg.)
DR. MOULTON'S HELLENISTIC SEMINAR
By H. MCLACHLAN.
IT is not unfitting that in the record of the academic
activities of the late Dr. J. H. Moulton a place should be
found for the mention of the University Hellenistic Seminar
founded by him in October, 1913.
A number of members of !the staff of the University and
of its affiliated Theological Colleges together with other
scholars resident in the district were invited by Dr. Moulton
to meet in his room fortnightly during Term for the
purpose of a critical study of New Testament Greek. From
the beginning, until he left for India two years later, Dr.
Moulton acted as President, and though he was not the
man to express such a sentiment, he might have said of
the Seminar, without fear of contradiction, magna pars fui.
His interest in its proceedings never flagged and he looked
forward to the adoption of plans of study, which his
removal has rendered impossible of execution. Several
times he sent from India greetings to his fellow-members.
Dr. Moult on' s place was filled with great ability by
Archdeacon Allen — a member of the Seminar from the first
—and, as far as possible, the scheme of our late President
has been consistently pursued.
During the Sessions 1913-16 the matter peculiar to St.
Luke was studied in detail, and during the present Session
(1916-17) the Acts of the Apostles has been the subject of
study. Attention has been paid not merely to the various
MS. readings of the Greek text, but also to the versions
(Latin, Syriac and Egyptian), to the evidence of the papyri
29
30 H. McLACHLAN
and the inscriptions and, as long as Professor Calder was
with us, to Modern Greek. For the sources of St. Luke,
Greek and Semitic, careful search has been made.
In all, fifty-one meetings have been held with an
average attendance of seven. The minutes of proceedings
amount to neajly 200 pages of closely written matter.
An important feature of the meetings has been the discovery
of linguistic problems requiring investigation, which have
given rise to reports afterwards presented to the Seminar,
and, in some gases, also contributed as notes to the
Expository Times, or to various publications by individual
members.
Thus, the note on ermi/^aX^w in Archdeacon Allen's Com-
mentary on Mark (1915) was, as he acknowledges,
"suggested by a hint from Dr. Moulton that wai/daXoi/
should properly mean * a snare ' rather than ' a stumbling
block.' ' Dr. Moulton himself contributed a note to the
Expository Times of April, 1915, in which reference is made
to Dr. Bennett's examination of the Hebrew equivalents of
the word in the Old Testament. In July of the same year
the Rev. T. Nicklin contributed a second note upon
ffKMaXov dealing with hoKoXievo^voQ of Job xl. 19 (LXX)
in which the suggestions of three other members of the
Seminar were mentioned. The Rev. L. W. Grensted also
wrote for the April Number, 1915, an article on the "Use
of Enoch in St. Luke xvi. 19-31," which had its origin in
the Seminar, and in July, 1916, Mr. Nicklin was responsible
for a note in the same Journal on
Again, Archdeacon Allen's discussion of ripta.
with an infinitive, when nothing is said of any further
development (Comm. on Mark, p. 49) was first presented to
the Seminar as a report on the word. Recently, the Rev.
D. P. Buckle submitted a note on *y>77vj}e, Act,s i. 18, which
it is hoped to see in print, showing that the rendering
"swollen" by Dr. Chase in the Journal of Theological Studies,
Dr. MOULTON'S HELLENISTIC SEMINAR 3*
by Dr. Souter in his Pocket Z. \~icou to the Greek New
Testament, and by Dr. Moffatt in his Translation of the
New Testament is quite without justification.
Among the longer minutes of proceedings are a discus-
sion by the Secretary of the reading of Codex D at ,Matt.
xx. 28 as a literal translation of an Aramaic source edited
by Luke in the so-called Parable of the Wedding Feast
(xiv. 8-1 1); from the same hand, an examination of the
alleged Semitisms pikv r&v fyucpu/j/ Luke xvii. 22 and
dc . - . etc Luke xviii. 10 (D) ; and a statement of the
meaning of efyapurrla, according to the inscriptions, by the
Rev. D. P. Buckle, showing that from the third century
B.C. to the third century A.D. " the meaning* of the word was
somewhat flexible."
Brief obiter dicta by Dr. Moulton on matters about which
he has said little elsewhere lend to the minutes an added
interest for future students in the Hellenistic Department
of the University. Despite occasional sharp differences of
opinion, the harmony which has always prevailed at the
meetings of the Seminar has been most marked — a result
due, in a large measure, to the geniality and tact of Dr.
Moulton and his successor in the Chair.
In one detail the writer believes Dr. Moulton would have
modified his opinion had he been spared. " An over-
tendency to minimise Semitisms in the N. T.," says his
friend and colleague, Dr. Milligan, " is probably the most
pertinent criticism that can be directed against Dr. J. H.
Moulton's Prolegomena to his Grammar of New Testament
Greek.*' Dr. Moulton's admissions in the course of discus-
sions in the Seminar showed that he had not always
realised the full weight of the argument for " Semitisms,"
whilst they displayed the true scholar's magnanimous
spirit in his treatment of the "case for the other side."
No words can fully express the esteem in which Dr. Moulton
was held by those whose privilege it was to work with
32 H. McLACHLAN
him, and the members of the Hellenistic Seminar treasure
the memory of many pleasant and profitable hours spent
in the study of the New Testament under his able and
devoted leadership.*
*The writer of this article has acted as Secretary to the Hellenistic
Seminar since its foundation. Readers will be interested to hear that
a Hebrew Seminar is now at work along the same lines in connection
with the Manchester and District Branch of the Society for Hebraic
Studies. The meetings have been held at the University, and seem
likely to produce equally good results. — Ed. J.M.E.O.S.
THE TEXT OF JUDGES XVII-XVIII.
By M. H. SEGAL.
SINCE the publication of Karl Budde's Die Biicher Richter und
Samuel (Giessen, 1890), there has been a general agreement
among scholars that the difficulties presented by the text of
chaps, xvii.-xviii. of the Book of Judges can best be solved by
the so-called "documentary hypothesis." This hypothesis
maintains that our text is composed of two documents, each of
which gave originally an independent account of the same
events. These two documents were fitted together and united,
more or less skilfully, by a redactor, into what appears now as
a single narrative. The redactor, however, failed to remove all
the redundancies and discrepancies which arose from the
union of two different documents, with the result that the
product of his labours presents a narrative which is at once
inflated, confused, and self-contradictory. Now, it is evident
that this theory of the composite character of our text can be
justified only if it fulfils the following two conditions: first,it must
show that our text is capable of being dissolved into two com-
ponent parts, each of which presents a reasonably complete
and coherent narrative; and secondly, it must prove an
effective solution of at least the principal problems of our text
without at the same time raising fresh difficulties. I propose to
show in the following pages that the " documentary theory "
fails to fulfil either of these two essential conditions ; and that
the problems of our text can be solved by a simpler and more
reasonable method. It will be sufficient for our purpose to
confine our enquiry to an examination of the analyses of our
33
34 SEGAL
text offered by two of the most authoritative of recent exponents
of the " documentary hypothesis," viz., G. F. Moore in his well-
known commentary on Judges in the " International Critical "
series (1895, p. 365^), and W. Nowack in his Richter in the
Hand-Kommentar zum A. T. (p. 140^).
Moore bases his analysis upon the following two criteria :*
i. One document, which we shall call A, spoke only of ephdd
and terdphim (xvii. 5) ; while the other document, which we call
B, had only pesel and massekdh (xvii. 4). 2. In A Micah's priest
is a full-grown Levite (ha-ish) wandering from Bethlehem,
whom Micah hires to make his home with him (xvii. 8-na).
In B, on the other hand, the priest is a young Levite (na'ar)
who was living in the neighbourhood of Micah (gdr sham, xvii.
7, nb, I2a). Accordingly, Moore separates the two documents
as follows: A ch. xvii. I, 5, 8-na, I2b, 13; ch. xviii. ibot. 2 (in
part). 3 (last clause only). 4b-6. 7 (in part). 8-IO (in part).
11-16, i8a, I7b, i8b-3<D. B ch. xvii. 2-4, 7, nb-i2a; ch. xviii.
i (in part). 3 (to bdzeh). 4a. 7 (in part). 8-10 (in part), n (in
part). 15. 17-29 (in part). 31.
We will first examine the soundness of the criteria of Moore'^
analysis, and then the analysis itself.
i. It is held by Moore and by other scholars following Vatke,
that the original documents could have spoken only of one pair
of sacra, either ephdd and terdphim or pesel and massekdh, but
not of all the four together. This theory is based upon the
changes in the order of enumeration of the sacra in xviii. 14,
17, 1 8, 20. But it may be asked whether it is quite safe to
base a theory upon so manifestly corrupt and disordered a text
as that of xviii. 17-20, and to make the theory so obtained the
foundation of a far-reaching textual hypothesis. In xviii. 1 8
*etk pesel hd- ephdd is obviously a corruption for *eth happesel
we'eth hd 'ephdd, as in v. 17, and LXX. In v. 20, we must
1 Cf. Budde, op. tit., p. 143.
THE TEXT OF JUDGES 35
supplement with LXX : \happesel\ wgeth hammassekdhy as in
v. 14. Moore, and the other followers of Vatke, are faced with the
difficulty of explaining how xviii. 14-20, derived from documents
which only knew of one pair of sacra, can enumerate three or
four such objects. They seek to get over the difficulty by
assuming that pesel and massekdh were inserted in these verses
by the redactor (Moore, pp. 395, 396, 397). But then, why did
not the redactor observe the same order in all his insertions?
No doubt he did, and the present confusion must be due to the
negligence of some transcriber. If so, what prevents us from
maintaining that all the four sacra belong to the original narrator,
who put them in the order given in xviii. 14, and that the permu-
tations in the other verses are due to scribal carelessness ? Thus
the whole theory derived from these permutations falls to the
ground. Moreover, xviii. 30, belonging according to Moore to
Ay which knew only of ephod and terdphim^ nevertheless speaks
of the sacred spoil as pesel. So xviii. 31, which according to
Budde, Nowack and others belongs to A, has also pesel alone.
How is this strange phenomenon to be explained ? These
scholars reply that pesel is in one of these verses a redactional
substitution for ephod. But this explanation is hardly plausible.
A redactor would be more likely to leave ephod in the text,
adding pesel to it, than to substitute one for the other. There
is no reason why he should have given up here the method
of interpolation which he is alleged to have employed in xviii.
14, 17, 1 8, 20, in favour of substitution. Surely, it is more
reasonable to assume that pesel is original throughout the
narrative, and that for the sake of brevity pesel alone is
mentioned in xviii. 30, 31, because of its pre-eminent importance
over the other sacra.
Finally, A fails to explain why Micah should have erected a
special sanctuary to house his ephod and terdphtm. (xvii. 5 ;
cf. Moore, p. 378 f.) The ephod was carried about in the hand
(cf. i Sam. xxiii. 6, 9) and did not necessarily require a
36 SEGAL
sanctuary. As for the terdphim, they were kept in ordinary
dwelling-houses as part of the domestic furniture, (cf. Gen. xxxi.
19, 34; I Sam. xix. 13, i6.)2 Ch. xvii. 5 can mean only that
the beth e'lohim had been erected to house some other sacra,
viz., the pesel and massekah, and that to complete its equipment,
particularly for the purpose of obtaining oracles, Micah added
also the ephod and terdphim.
2. We now come to Moore's second criterion. In A the
priest is a full-grown man wandering from Bethlehem in search
of a home (xvii. 8), while in B he is a young Levite, who had
his home as a ger in Micah's village (xvii. 7). Now this implied
contradiction between 'ish and notar, which is especially empha-
sized by Budde (pp. cit., p. 143) and Nowack (p. 146), has no
foundation in fact. *Isk is often used together with na'aro{ one
and the same person. So in I Kings xi. 28 Jeroboam is first
spoken of as hd-ish and then as hannctar. Cf. also Josh. vi.
22 and 23; i Sam. ii. 17; xxx. 17; 2 Sam. i. 2, 5, 6, 13;
2 Kings ix, 4, 1 1. 'Ish may be applied to a youth in the sense
of a " male person," while conversely nctar is often used of a
mature man in a subordinate position, such as the Levite
occupied both at Micah's house, and also before he came to
Micah. Cf. the description of Ziba as ntfar, 2 Sam. ix. 9, 10.
That the Levite in B was not a mere lad living with Micah as a
member of his own family is proved by xviii. 15, assigned by
Moore and others to B, where this hanna'ar hallevi is found in
possession of a house of his own. As to the difference between
the description of the man as hannctar hallevi and as hakkohen,
on which so much stress is laid by Moore and others, it is plain
that the latter title is used only when the man is brought
into connection with the sacra, and is thus intended to describe
2 In Judges viii. 27, to which Moore refers, there is no mention of the
erection of a sanctuary to house Gideon's ephdd. Further, we must not
assume that Micah's ephdd was of the same character as Gideon's ephdd.
It was probably similar to that of Ebiathar in i Sam. xxiii. 6, 9.
THE TEXT OF JUDGES 37
his official character and the functions which he exercised ;
cf. xvii. 13; xviii. 4, 6, 18, 19, etc. Further, gar sham in
xvii. 7 cannot mean, as Budde and Moore assert, that the
Levite had been resident with Micah. For if so, the writer
would have said .... 'h ma» tW "d DBn. As the text stands,
sham can refer only to Bethlehem, as has been recognised
by Nowack. Thus this alleged difference between the sources
also disappears.
Having disposed of the criteria set up by Moore, let us now
examine his analysis. Document A is said to begin with xvii. I,
and to continue in xvii. 5. But surely, it is not likely that the
narrator would have said : " There was a man . . . whose name
was Micah. And the man Micah had . . ." Moore seeks to
overcome the difficulty by ascribing the first two words in v. 5,
weha!ish mikdh to the redactor. It is, however, more reasonable
to assume that the resumption of the name Micah was due to
the original writer, and was necessitated tyy the intervening
narration of the episode in vv. 2-4. It may'1 further be asked
what induced Micah to erect a sanctuary for which he had
apparently later, to judge from the wording of v. 5, to make an
ephod and terdphim, and to engage a regular priest. Surely the
narrator would not have failed to give the circumstances which
led a private individual to such an extraordinary undertaking.
The only possible answer is that the narrator does give an account
of these circumstances, viz., in vv. 2-4. In other words, v. 5 is
the continuation not of v. i, but of v. 4, which alone can explain
both the wording and the contents of v. 5.
The continuation of v. 5 is said to be v. 8. Moore recognises
that the elimination of v. 7 renders the opening of v. 8 too
abrupt. He therefore conjectures an original introduction to
v. 8 as follows : " Now there was a Levite from Bethlehem of
Judah (8) And the man went" etc. This introduction was
omitted by the redactor in favour of the fuller text, v. 7, from B.
But it must be objected that such a brief and bald introduction
38 SEGAL
hardly lessens the abruptness of the supposed original text.
There can be no doubt that the true introduction to v. 8 is to be
found in v. 7, i.e., vv. 7-8 both belong to one hand. — A continues
to v. na, and is resumed only in v. I2b. But it is hardly
credible that the original would have failed to tell us the impor-
tant fact of the installation of the newcomer to supersede the
irregular priesthood of Micah's son. V. 1 2a, assigned by Moore
to B, is just as necessary for A. Note that A has already used
the phrase wayyemalle 'eth yad . . . in v. 5. — A goes on to v. 13,
breaks off at the end of xviii. 2, re-appears in the last clause of
xviii, 3 (A-mak lekd poh\ and is resumed again only in xviii, 4b.
Moore fails to tell us what intervened in the original document
between xviii. 2 and the last three words of xviii. 3, or between
these three words and the abrupt statement in xviii. 4b. Why
did the spies put such a surprising question (d-mah lekd poh ?)
to the priest, who, according to A, must have been an utter
stranger to them ? The only common-sense explanation of this
question is found in v. 3a, viz., that the Levite was an old
acquaintance of theirs whom they had met on his wanderings
described in xvii. 8. I may further add in passing that there is
really no reason why Moore should not have ascribed in v. 3b
wayy6merti . . . bdzeh to A , and A-mak lekd poh to B, or v. 4* to
A and v. 4b to B. — With the exception of vv. 15, 31, and a
number of phrases and duplicate clauses, A is made to continue
to the end of chapter xviii. I shall not attempt to follow the
tangled maze of the analysis of this part of the chapter, since
Moore himself is so very hazy about it. But I may remark that
the elimination of v. 15 renders v. 16 not only abrupt but
also unintelligible. Pethah hashshctar in v. 1 6 seems to hang
in the air. If it referred to beth mikdh mv. 13, this latter phrase
would surely have been repeated, pethah shctar beth mikdh,
after the intervening long v. 14. The truth is that v. 15 is the
necessary antecedent to v. 16.
The second document B is said to begin with xvii. 2. But
THE TEXT OF JUDGES 39
this verse must have had an introduction giving the name and
place of the person who spoke to his mother, such as is found in
v. I. — B continues to v. 4, and is resumed again in vv. 7, nb,
I2a. These verses are thus supposed to form together a single
and continuous section. But if so, it is strange that v. 7, which
is in the middle of the section, should begin with the formula
wayy'ht . . . , usually employed only at the beginning of a new
section. The verse should rather have begun somewhat as
follows: rmir onb iran •nb ira "u con. The truth is, as
noted above, that sham really refers to Bethlehem, and not,
as Moore assumes, to Micah's village. V. 7 (wayy'ht ntfar
mibbeth . . .) really begins a new section describing how Micah
came to possess a Levite as priest, and is parallel to the first
section of the narrative beginning in v.i (wayy'ht 'ish mehar . . .),
which describes how Micah became the possessor of a fully
equipped sanctuary. Further, it is not quite clear why
Micah had to appoint a priest at all, seeing that B says
nothing of the erection of a sanctuary, and accordingly the
pesel and massekah were presumably kept in Micah's own house.
We nowhere find official priests officiating at private dwelling-
houses and outside regular sanctuaries.
It is hard to follow the thread of B in ch. xviii. To this
document are assigned a number of duplicate phrases and
expressions in vv. 2, 7-10, which may quite well be explained
as mere scribal glosses and variants. In addition to these stray
phrases, Moore and other scholars ascribe to B v. 3, minus the
last clause, with its continuation v. 4a and z>. 15, because of the
occurrence in these verses of the epithet hanntfar hallevi.
I have already shown above that this epithet may very well
belong to the same document which has ha-ish (xvii. 8) or
hakkohen (xviii. 4b, 6, etc.). But apart from this, it is very hard
to understand how according to this analysis the spies recognised
the Levite by his voice (xviii. 3). Surely, it is plain that
xviii. 3* (B) refers back to xvii. 8 (A), and that the spies had
40 SEGAL
made the Levite's acquaintance during his wanderings from
Bethlehem northwards in search of a home. In other words,
xviii. 3, and xvii. 8, must belong to one and the same document.
Budde, following some older German expositors, explains kolm
xviii. 2, as dialect. The spies knew from the Levite's dialect
that he was a Bethlehemite, as if those rough and ready warriors
had been trained German philologists. There is no analogy for
this use of kol in the sense of dialect. The question asked by
some expositors, why the spies, did not know the Levite by his
face, may be answered by the assumption that a long interval
of time had elapsed since the Levite had passed through the
Danite country, and that during that interval he had changed
in his appearance, but not in his voice. Further, to what does
shdmdh in v. 15 refer ? Obviously to habbdtim hdelleh in v. 14,
or to beth mikdh in v. 13. This proves that v. 15 is the
continuation of vv. 13, 14, and thus belongs to the same
document as these latter verses. — Finally, v. 31, which is
considered by these scholars to be independent of v. 30, and is
thus assigned by Moore to B, and by others to A, fails to give
any satisfactory sense. This verse does not say that the pesel
stood at Dan " all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh,"
but they set up the pesel "all the time," etc. This must
mean that the act of setting up the pesel lasted "all the
time that the house of God was in Shiloh," which is manifestly
absurd.
We may now proceed to examine Nowack's analysis of
ch. xvii.3 Nowack bases his analysis upon the criteria adopted
by Moore, with the additional assumption that in A the priest
is not a Levite at all, but an ordinary layman. Following
Wellhausen, Nowack analyses ch. xvii. as follows : A vv. I, 2a,
3b ^ (from welattdh\ 4aba (to keseph, and inserting for the sake
of completeness a hypothetical wattitfnehd libndh}, 5aba (to
s Nowack's analysis of chap, xviii. is in its main features similar to
Moore's analysis of that chapter.
THE TEXT OF JUDGES 41
fi-terdphim\ 7 (only mimmiskpakath ykAddh\ 8, 9ab ft (from
u?anokt\ ioa, na. Bvv. 2b, 3aba (to &-massekdh\ 4b ^ (from
wattit?nek&\ 5b /J (from wayy'malle], 7 (minus mimmishpahath
yhAddh\ 9ba (to yhtiddh\ i ib, 12, 13.
Now most of the objections raised above against Moore's
analysis apply with equal force to Nowack's analysis. There
are also a number of fresh difficulties. If the priest in A
was not a Levite, why is he called in the same document hallevi
(v. na)? Nowack answers that this hallevi is a redactional
substitution for an original ha-ish. If so, then the original form
of v. iia must have run: wayyoel hd-ish Idshebeth* eth hd-ish,
which is clearly impossible. We may further ask, if the priest
was originally a layman, why was Micah so eager to engage the
service of an unknown stranger on such costly terms ? Surely
he could easily have found in his own village some person willing
to be consecrated as priest for such a high stipend. And how
did this vagrant layman acquire the technical knowledge and
skill necessary for obtaining oracles, which he is shown to have
possessed in the same document A, in xviii. 5-6 ? Who looked
after the sanctuary before the arrival of this layman priest, since
A is ignorant of the temporary priesthood of Micah's son ?
Then again, A does not explain the connection between the
theft of the mother's silver and the erection of the son's
sanctuary. It is clear, though Nowack's A says nothing about
it, that the sanctuary was erected at the cost of the stolen silver.
Why should the silver have been applied to such a purpose?
The answer must be that the mother had devoted it to God,
as stated in B. V. 3ba is therefore as necessary to A as to B.
Moreover, in v. 9 Nowack deprives A of clause £a, because of
the statement it contains levi 'andki. But surely *anoki hdlek
alone cannot be the whole answer to Micah's question. Micah
did not ask the stranger whither he was going, but rather
whence he had come. The only logical answer to such a
question is precisely the one found in clause £a, levi anoki
42 SEGAL
mibbeth lehem . . . , which Nowack assigns to B. Finally, the
account of the engagement of the stranger by Micah ends in A
with v. ii. But surely, it is unlikely that the narrator would
have failed to mention the important fact of the consecration
of the stranger to the priesthood. In other words, v. I2a is as
necessary for A as for B.
In like manner, B will be found on examination to be incom-
plete and unintelligible without A. The mother's benediction
and the son's restoration of the silver can be rendered intel-
ligible only by vv. I, 2a, which Nowack assigns to A. The verb
wayyemalle, in v. 5b, has no subject, unless it be mikdh
mentioned in v. 5a (A\ which implies that v. 5b is the continua-
tion of v. 5a. Similarly v. 9ba (levt 'andkt) can be under-
stood only as an answer to v. 9a. Between v. 9ba and its
supposed continuation in v. i ib we want a statement about the
engagement of the Levite by Micah referred to below in the
same document B in xviii. 4a.
The foregoing pages will have made it abundantly clear that
our narrative resists all attempts to separate it into two distinct
documents. The " documentary hypothesis," therefore, fails to
fulfil the first of the two essential conditions set down at the
beginning of this paper. But it also fails to fulfil the second
condition. It proves to be incapable of solving the real
difficulties of our text. The crur of our textual problem is
found in xviii. 16-18, the account of the theft by the Danites
of Micah's sacra and his priest. With all their laborious
analyses, the exponents of the " documentary hypothesis " are
altogether powerless to disentangle the apparently confused and
contradictory statements in these verses. They are further
unable to allocate to either of their documents such additions
as xvii. 6; xviii. I2b, 29b, or stray phrases like wayyelek hallevi
in xvii. iob; ' asher mibb'ne dan in xviii. i6b, although the sole
purpose of the second document B seems to be to serve as a
repository for such apparently unnecessary phrases and clauses.
THE TEXT OF JUDGES 43
We may now attempt a fresh and independent study of our
text. The failure of the " documentary hypothesis " forces upon
us the conclusion that our narrative is a unity, and that it
emanates from one author. Nevertheless, even a cursory perusal
of the chapters will be sufficient to convince us that they contain
a great deal of matter which cannot have come from the hand
of the original narrator. We find in our text repetitions,
explanations and amplifications which are not only unnecessary
but also contradictory and confusing. These must be interpo-
lations by later glossators and scribes. The origin of these
interpolations is not, however, to be sought, with Wellhausen
and Kuenen, in any ulterior or dishonest motives of the scribes,
such as a desire to discredit the sanctuary and priesthood of
Dan, but rather in the character and style of the narrative itself.
The narrative formed a popular tale, which must have been
re-told again and again, and each time with fresh additions.
Moreover, even in its original form the narrative was somewhat
inclined to a certain diffuseness of style. The fulness of
description and fondness for detail displayed by the original
narrator must have encouraged glossators and scribes to add
further explanations and amplifications. Such glossatory
additions are found in xvii. 3 ('eleph d-medk) ; vi. 7 (w'hti gar
shdm)\ xviii. ia, 3 (timah lekd p6k], iob, n (missor'dh
A-meeshttidl\ I2b, i6b, 28 (w'hi . . . r'hdb), 2Qb. No doubt
some, if not all, of these additions were first written in the
margin, and only later introduced into the text, often in the
wrong place, by more or less ignorant scribes. There also arose
dittographs which found their way into the text in the form of
a clause or a whole verse, e.g., xvii. iob; xviii. 17. Again,
variant readings were inserted in the text from the margin,
e.g., xviii. 2 (mikksothdm 'andshtm) ; 7 (yoskebeth . . . sidonim)\
31. Finally, the text exhibits also corruptions of letters and
words which can no longer be restored with any certainty, such
as maklim, ydresh leser in xviii. 7 ; 'attem in xviii, 8. We will
44 SEGAL
now go through the chapters, and note these corruptions in the
order of their occurrence in the text.
Ch. xvii. Verses 1-2 are preserved in their original form.
The substance of the oath after beoznay in v. 2 was probably left
unexpressed by the narrator himself (cf. Budde, p. 139).—
Verses 2-4 have given commentators an enormous amount of
trouble. V. 3a is repeated in v. 4*. The last three words in
v. 3 (wfattdh ' ashibennti Idk) are obviously not in their right
place. Various attempts have been made to recover the original
form of these verses, but none of these attempts can be pro-
nounced satisfactory. Moore's reconstruction (p. 378), though
plausible, fails to explain how the complicated transpositions,
which he assumes, arose. I think all the difficulties can best be
removed by regarding wfattdh 'ashibennfi Idk : wayydsheb 'eth
hakkeseph l^immd, vv. 3b-4a, as an intrusion from the margin.
The original reading of v. 3a was the shorter form found in v. 4a.
The present form of v. 3a was originally a marginal amplification
by a glossator, who sought to make the statement more explicit
by giving the exact amount of the silver as in v. 2. A later
scribe, preferring the amplified form of the margin to the briefer
form of the text, transferred the marginal form to the text, and
relegated the original form of the text to the margin. Now
this marginal amplification, which now stands in the text as
v. 3a, had been preceded in the margin by another amplificatory
addition : wtfattdh 'ashibennfi Idk, designed to render the state-
ment in v. 2 : hinneh hakkeseph 'itti 'ant Fkahtiw more precise
and explicit. These two marginal notes originally ran as
follows : we'-attdh "ashibennti Idk. wayydsheb "eth 'eleph d-me'dh
hakkeseph Ie'imm6. The first note was, as just stated, an addition
to the end of v. 2a ; and the second note a variant to v. 3* (4a)
in a more explicit form. When this latter marginal variant had
taken the place of the original in the text (3a), and the original
had been relegated to the margin, the two notes in the margin
then read we'-attdh 'ashibennfi Idk. wayydsheb 'eth hakkeseph
THE TEXT OF JUDGES 45
Ieimm6. Eventually these two notes found their way into the
text at the end of v. 3 and the beginning of v. 4.
Verses 4b-5 are smooth and quite correct as they stand.
There is no need to insert PI3S after mikdh in v. 5a, as Budde
and Nowack propose. V. 6 is, of course, a later explanatory
addition. In v. 7 mibbtth lehem yhtiddh mimmishpahathyehAddh
seems tautologous; nevertheless there is no doubt whatever that
both descriptions are original. The phrase zuayychtnalar mibbeth
leliem y'hdddh is an exact parallel to wayy'hi 'ish mehar 'ephrdim
in v.i\cf. also I Sam. i. I, etc.; and for the collocation of
mishpdhd with a name of a place cf. xviii. 2, below. Again,
mimmishpahath y'htiddh cannot be a gloss, for, as Moore points
out (p. 383), no scribe would have ventured to represent a Levite
as a member of a lay tribe. The tautology of the double
description is also found in Judges xiii. 2. It sounds harsh here
only because of the inevitable repetition of the name y'htiddk.
The last clause of v. 7 (w'M gar skdwi) is probably a gloss, and
is intended to remove the impression that a Judahite could also
be a Levite. The glossator explains that the Levite was a
Judahite only by adoption.4 Verses 8-ioa are in their original
form. V. iob, wayyelek hallevt, is a corrupt dittograph of the
following wayyffel hallevi in v. 1 1 . Verses 11-12 describe the
stages by which the stranger became installed as a priest. He
was first admitted as a member of Micah's household (v. 1 1 ).
Having proved himself trustworthy, he was installed as priest
(v. I2a), and became a member of Micah's settlement (= beth
mikdh, v. I2b; cf. xviii. 13, 14, 15, 22).
Ch. xviii. v. ia, is a gloss, like xvii. 6. V. ib/3 (ki 16 . . .)
is considered by Moore as a gloss, but without it the preceding
4 Cf. the somewhat similar explanation in 2 Sam. iv. 2, as to how the
Beerothites, who were probably Hivvites (Josh. ix. 7, 17), came to be
described as Benjamites : ki gam bJeroth tehasheb . . . Cf. the writer's
" Studies in the Books of Samuel," Jewish Quarterly Review (new series),
VIII., pp. 98-99.
46 SEGAL
clause v. iba (d-bayydmim . . Idshebeth) remains rather abrupt.
Moreover, it is extremely improbable that a glossator would
have inserted a statement which is in flagrant contradiction
with a number of passages in the Book of Joshua (cf. Josh. xiii.
7 ; xix. 40-48 ; xxiii. 4). In v. 2a mikksdthdm 'andshim is a
variant of mimmishpahtdm hamishshdh 'andshim in the same
verse. So in v. 3b &-mdh lekd poh is probably a variant of the
preceding equivalent clause A-mdh 'attdh 'dseh bdzeh, and in
v. 7 ydshebeth Idbetah k'mishpat sidonim, a variant of the
following phrase shoket A-bdteak. Maklim in the same verse
is most probably, as Bertheau and Budde suggest, a corruption
of mahsdr as in v. 10. Yoresh 'eser I take to be a corrupt
dittograph of Dasher brfdres. It is, of course, a gloss on bat ares
in the text, derived from the end of v. iob. This latter clause
(mdkom . . . bd'dres, v. iob) I also regard as a gloss derived
from v. 7 : we' en maklim ( = mahsdr). Its purpose is to bring
the actual report of the spies into closer agreement with the
account of their original observation in v. 7. The whole
statement in v. iob is not only in the wrong place, but also
unnecessary after the statement w'hinneh tobdh meod in v. 9*.
Kittel's proposal in his Biblia Hebraica to transpose v. iob to
the end of v. 9 cannot be entertained. First, because there
is no reason why this transposition should have taken place,
and secondly, because the use in the same verse of hd'dres
for a particular land and for earth would produce a certain
harshness. It is also doubtful whether the original narrator
would have described hd'dres as mdkdm. In v. 1 1 missofdh
fi-m?eshtd?dl is a gloss derived from v. 2. V. I2b is a later
addition. In v. 14 layish is a gloss from v. 7. V. i6b is
an explanatory gloss on weshesk me'oth 'ish at the beginning
of the verse.
The best solution of the problem presented by v. 17 is to
regard the whole verse as an intrusion into the text. The
verse consists of a series of doublets which were combined
THE TEXT OF JUDGES 47
to form a more or less coherent sentence. Thus, wayyctald . . .
ha ares is a dittograph of the first part of v. 14: wayya'anfi. . . .
ha! ares, with the change in the first word of n into /. bat A . . .
hammassekdh w'hakkohen is a doublet of v. 1 8 : \we'elleh\
bd'u . . . hakkohcn ; while nissdb . . . kele hammilhdmdh is a
doublet of v. i6a. We shall meet with a somewhat similar
process in the formation of a new verse below in v. 31.* By
the elimination of this troublesome intrusion we obtain a
perfectly reasonable account of the occurrence. The five spies
turn in to visit their old acquaintance, the Levite (v. 15).
While the 600 warriors remain outside standing at the gate
fully armed to meet any eventuality (v. 16), the former
(= we"elleh, v. 16, viz., the five spies) go into "Beth Micah,"
and take possession of the sacra. It must be assumed that the
priest had accompanied them to the sanctuary, perhaps under
the impression that they wanted another oracle. No doubt
his house was attached to the sanctuary. When asked by the
spies to accompany them as their priest (v. 19), he readily
consents, and himself takes the sacred objects, and joins the
crowd of emigrants (v. 20). As stated above, we must read
in w. 1 8, 20, 'eth Jid'ephod w*eth hatfrdphim we'eth happesel
we'eth hammassekdh, as in v. 14. In v. 28 w'hi . . . r*kdb
is an explanatory addition. The original writer would have
given this geographical description immediately with the first
mention of Laish in v. J. In like manner we must eliminate
v. 29b as a gloss ; cf. Gen. xxviii. 19, and Moore, p. 399.
I have already referred above to the difficulty presented
by v. 31. The act of setting up the pesel could not have lasted
" all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh." The
whole verse must be regarded as a combination of two variant
readings on v. 30. V. 3ia is a variant of v. 30% while v. 3ib is
6 Another example of stray phrases being combined to form a new verse
is found in 2 Sam. i. 25, which is derived from vv. I9b, 26, and 27. See
the writer's " Studies in the Books of Samuel," op. cit., V., p. 204.
48 SEGAL
a variant of v. 30^ : 'adyom g'loth hd'dres. These two clauses
of v. 31 stood originally in the margin. The full text of this
verse, which was intended by the glossator to supersede v. 30,
was as follows : GOTO p jnaim HOT TOX n^D i>DD DX Dr6 ^EH
rten DT&X ma nrn •'»•» ^D -»:in toatzrb o^aro vn ram xin TOO p
" And they set up for themselves Micah's pesel which he had
made : and Jehonathan^ the son of Gershom, the son of Moses
(Manasseh), he and his sons were priests to the tribe of the
Danites all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh." In
this form #.31 gives a perfectly logical sense. As to which is
the original form of this important statement, whether that
of v. 30 or v. 31, there can be no shadow of doubt. The
glossatory character of v. 31 stamps it at once as of a secondary
character. Furthermore, the reduction in v. 31 in the duration
of the priesthood of Jehonathan's house evidently represents an
attempt to explain why the pious Kings of Israel, like Saul,
David and Solomon, had tolerated the idolatrous cult at
Dan. The answer given by the variant reading is that the
schismatic priesthood and, presumably, its cult lasted only
as long as the sanctuary of Shiloh, and had thus ceased to
exist long before the rise of the monarchy. In other words,
this glossatory version of v. 30 is equivalent to the glossatory
apology in xvii. 6; xviii. i, "in those days there was no
King in Israel," and must belong to the same hand.
THE GOD OF THE WITCHES
By M. A. MURRAY.
IN treating of witches I draw a sharp distinction between
Operative and Ritual Witchcraft. Operative Witchcraft
consists of charms and spells by which certain effects, good
or bad, are produced on animate or inanimate objects; it
has not necessarily anything to do with religion and can
be practised by the votaries of any religion or by the
members of any sect. Ritual Witchcraft, on the other hand,
is as clearly defined and organised a method of worship as
any other cult, ancient or modern, and may be classed as
one of the Religions of the Lower Culture. In some of its
aspects it is allied to the cults of Western Asia, andi it may
prove to be the remains of the same primitive religion from
which the peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean also derived
their cults. In Europe it appears to have been practised
among the early dwarf races, who are known later as
fairies, brownies, pixies, and so on. Therefore, it is also
possible that the people of Western Asia borrowed the cult
from Europe, and that a study of this ancient religion, of
which very detailed records survive, will throw light on
many obscure points of Syrian and Egyptian religions.
Hitherto scholars have largely devoted themselves to study-
ing the effect of the East on the West iri ancient times,
but the effect of the West on the East presents problems
of equal interest.
It must be remembered that all the accounts of the
witches were written by members of a fiercely hostile
religion; there are no records made by the witches them-
49
50 M. A. MURRAY
selves. To the Christian of a certain type all deities other
than the Christian God were devils, all worship other than
the Christian was devil-worship. Bearing this in mind, it
is easy to understand how Christian recorders came to speak
of the witches' god as the Devil, Satan, Beelzebub, Lucifer,
and any other epithet by which they could identify him with
the Principle of Evil. But this was the opposite of what
the witches believed. They looked on him as the creator
and giver of life, and he was to them what God and Christ
were to the Christian.
Most of our difficulty in realising the cult of the witches
is due to the writers on the subject. All the judges who
heard the evidence at first-hand had no doubt whatever as
to the actuality of the events described. Coke's dictum,
that "a witch is a person who has conference with the devil,
to take counsel or to do some act," voiced the opinion of
the judges in Great Britain and France. At the same time
no thinking man could believe in Operative Witchcraft,
and various writers gave vent to such opinions. Of these
Reginald Scot was one of the most important. Having no
other means of disproving the alleged powers of witches, he
attacked indiscriminately all statements as to their actions.
To him the evidence of eye witnesses and the confession of
the accused, that she had met a man in black whom she
adored as God, was as incredible as t,hat she had killed a
neighbour's child by muttering a spell. He did not get
his evidence tat first-hand, his quotations from his authorities
are often inaccurate, and his attempts to disprove the
evidence are not: convincing. Though his book, published
1584, marks a distinct epoch in the feeling towards witches,
he succeeded in confusing the subject. Later writers who
agreed with Scot in his disbelief in the magical powers of
witches, but who like him could not account for their
categorical statements as to trie form of worship that they
practised, produced the theory that the witches were either
victims of hallucination or victims of persecution, and that
THE GOD OF THE WITCHES 5 1
all their judges were actuated by motives of cruelty or
prejudice. If, however, we accept the fact that the witches
were members of an ancient religion, practising their primi-
tive ritual and carrying on tjie beliefs of their ancestors,
the difficulties of the situation vanish.
In this paper I propose to bring forward some account
of this hitherto unrecognised deity, premising that through-
out I use the word " witch " in the sense not of enchantress
or soothsayer but of the worshipper of a non-Christian God ;
and using the word " Devil " as connoting that God.
The ecclesiastical laws of Great Britain and France show
that the ancient religion survived in sufficient force up to
the eleventh century to make enactments against it
necessary.1 As the Church gained in power, the laws
increased in stringency, until at last in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries by means of the gallows and the
stake the last remains of ancient heathenism were crushed.
The witches fought the losing battle gallantly; their pro-
selytising campaigns were often well organised, but the
weight of civilisation was against their religion and it was
destroyed. The accounts of this destruction are preserved
in the trials of individual witches, and from this great mass
of detailed information the cult and creed can be recon-
structed with a good deal of accuracy.
Many of the contemporary writers, who give a general
resume of the religion, state in so many; words that the
witches believed in the divinity of their Master. " The
Diuell commaundeth them that they shall acknowledge
him for their god, cal vpon him, pray to him, and trust in
him. — Then doe they all repeate the othe which they have
geuen vnto him, in acknowledging him to be their God."2
They " take him for their God, worship, invoke, obey him."3
1See my paper " Organisations of Witches in Great Britain," in
the Folklore Society 's Journal, 1917.
2 1575. Danasus, Dialogue of Witches, ch. ii., ch. iii.
3 1646. Gaule, Cases of Conscience, p. 62.
52 M. A. MURRAY
"Persons who were engaged to the Devil by a precise
Contract will allow no other God but him."4
Individual witches defined their belief with equal precision.
The Aberdeen witch, Marion Grant, was accused of meeting
"the Devil whom thou callest thy god, [who] appeared to
thee and caused thee to worship him on thy knees as thy
lord."5 De Lancre, the inquisitor who suppressed the witch
religion in the Pays de Labour, gives the formula of the
witches' vow of allegiance to their Master, " I place myself
at every point in thy Ipower and in thy hands, recognising no
other God, for thou art my God."6 Margaret Johnson of
the second generation of Lancashire witches confessed that
"the devil bad her call him by the name of Memillion.
And she saith that in all her talke and conference shee
called the said Memillion her god."7 Rebecca West, an
Essex witch " confessed that her mother prayed constantly,
(and as the world thought, very seriously), but she said it
was to the devil, using' these words, Oh my God, my God,
meaning him and not the LORD."S A certain Isobel Gowdie,
of the witch society in Auldearne, near Nairn, made a
remarkable confession in which a large amount of detail
is given; the confession having been made voluntarily and
without torture carries considerable weight. She said,
"We get all this power from the Devil; and when we seek
it from him, we call him ' our Lord.' ... At each time, when
we would meet with him, we behoved to rise and make our
curtsey; and we would say, 'Ye are welcome, our Lord,'
and * How do ye, my Lord.' "9 Another Essex witch,
* 1661. Bourignon, Vie Exterieur, p. 222; Hale, Collection of
Modern Relations, p. 37.
5 1596. Spalding Club Miscellany, II., pp. 170-2. Spelling
modernised.
6 1609. De Lancre, Tableau de rinconstance des Mauvais Anges,
P- 398.
7 1633. Webster, Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft, pp. 347-9.
8 1645. Stearne, Confirmation and Discovery of Witchcraft, pp.
38-9.
9 1662. Pitcairn, Criminal Trials, III., 605, 615. Spelling Modernised
THE GOD OF THE WITCHES 53
Widow Coman, acknowledged that the Devil " was her
Master and sat at the right hand of God."10
The Devil himself impressed the fact of his own divinity
upon his followers, especially in his sermons and at the
admission ceremonies. "He always tells them he is the
true God," and "the devil made them believe he was the
true God," says the scandalised' de Lancre,11 who is careful
to remark that the latter piece of information was given
to him by " une tres-belle femme" aged twenty-eight. A
few sentences of a Scotch Devil's sermon at Crighton are
preserved by Lord Fountainhall ; when preaching to the
witches the Devil " most blasphemously mocked them, if
they offered to trust in God, who left them miserable in the
world, and neither he nor his Son Jesus Christ ever
appeared to them when they called on him, as he had, who
would not cheat them."12 Here the religious bias of the
recorder is clearly shown, but equally clear also is the
appeal of witchcraft religion to the ignorant mind. The
deity who appeared to his worshippers in visible flesh and
blood, who came in bodily form at their call, who provided
for their wants with his own hands, who was worshipped
with feasting and dancing, who. was slain for their sakes
before their eyes, was a God whom the followers of the
Man of Sorrows found it hard to overcome.
All converts from Christianity renounced in detail their
previous beliefs, and dedicated themselves body and soul
to their Master; here and hereafter they belonged to him.
Many of them went to the stake strong in their faith, dying
"stubborn and impenitent," refusing the off er of a Christian
heaven, holding fast to the God whom they loved and who
told them " that the joy which the witches took in the
Sabbath was but the commencement of a much greater
10 1699. Gilbert, Witchcraft in Essex, p. 2.
11 De Lancre, pp. 399, 401-3.
12 Lord Fountainhall, Decisions, I., 15. Edinburgh, 1759.
54 M. A. MURRAY
glory."13 Some idea of their feeling concerning the Sabbath
is expressed in the following words : " Elles disoyent
franchement, qu'elles y alloyent et voyoient toutes ces
execrations auec vne volupte* admirable, et vn desir enrager
d'y aller et d'y estre, trouuant les iours trop reculez de la
nuict pour faire le voyage si desire, et le poinct ou Iqs
heures pour y aller trop lentes, at y estant, trop courtes
pour vn si agreable seiour et delicieux amusement.*'14
The Christian believed that all worshippers of the Devil
went to hell-fire and eternal torment, but to the witches to
be with their God was heaven. It is this spirit which
de Lancre chronicles when he says, "quand elles sont
preuenues de la Justice, elles ne pleurent et ne iettent vne
seule larme, voire leur faux martyre soit de la torture, soit
du gibet leur est si plaisant, qu'il tarde a plusieurs qu'elles
ne soient executees a mort, et souffrent fort ioyeusement
quTon leur face le procez, tant il leur tarde qu'elles ne
soient auec le Diable. Et ne s'impatientent de rien tant
en leur prison, que de ce qu'elles ne lui peuuent tesmoigner
combien elles souffrent et desirent souffrir pour luy."14A
One of the difficulties which arises in studying this
subject is the varying description of their Master given by
the witches. The difficulty, however, is more apparent than
real. Anyone who examines the evidence is soon aware
that this personage was in every case a man. The descrip-
tion, therefore, naturally varies in different places, both
as to the man himself and the clothes that he wore. The
style of his garments changed according to the place and
period. Thus in England he was usually plainly dressed
in black; in Scotland he appeared as a Highlander, or in
grey with a "blue bonnet," or completely attired in fairies'
colour, green. A Belgian Devil was " en pourpoint blanc
a la mode francaise."15
13 De Lancre, p. 126.
14 id., p. 208.
i*A*W., p. 133.
15 *595- Cannaert, Olim Proc&s des Sorcidres en Belgigue, p. 45.
THE GOD OF THE WITCHES ss
The evidence points also to his wearing a mask, possibly
as a disguise, but possibly also as part of the ritual cos-
tume. The mask is never actually mentioned, but its use
explains the extraordinary appearance and voice with which
the Devil is sometimes credited. Elizabeth Francis's cat-
familiar " spoke to her in a strange hollow voice, but such
as she understood by use."16 The German Devils' voices
sounded like a man speaking with his head in a cask or
pottery vessel, though they sometimes had soft voices. 16A
The Devil at North Berwick was " like a meikle black man,
with a black beard sticking out like a goat's beard, and a
high ribbed nose, falling down sharp like the beak of a
hawk."17 This is clearly a mask, and the description of
the same personage by another witch indicates not only a
mask over the face but a disguise of the whole person:
" He caused all the company to com and kiss his ers,
quhilk they said was cauld lyk yce ; his body was hard
lyk yrn, as they thocht that handled him; his faice was
terrible, his noise lyk the bek of an eagle, great bourning
eyn; his handis and legis were herry, with clawis upon his
handis, and feit lyk the griffon; and spake with a how
voice."18 The witches in the Lyons district also noted
the sound of the Devil's voice : " On a demand^ k George
Gandillon, si lors qu'il fut sollicite par Satan de se bailler
a luy, Satan parloit distinctement. II respondit que non,
et qu' k peine pouuoit il comprendre ce qu'il disoit."19 The
Devil of the Pays de Labour had " la voix effroyable et sans
ton, quand il parle on diroit que c'est vn mullet qui se
met k braire, il a la voix cassee, la parole mal articulee,
et peu intelligible, parce qu'il a tousiours la voix triste et
16 1556. "Examination of certain Witches at Chelmsford," p. 25.
Philobiblon Society, vol. VIII.
16A 1589. Remigius, Demonolatria, pt. I., ch. viii., p. 38.
17 1590. Pitcairn, I., pt. iii., p. 246.
18 Melville, Memoirs, p. 395.
19 1608. Boguet, Discours des Sorciers, pp. 56-7,
56 M. A. MURRAY
enroiiee."20 The Huntingdonshire Devil was said by a
witch to speak to her "like a man, but as he had been some
distance from her when he was with her;"20A one of the
Suffolk Devils had "a hollow, shrill voyce;"21 the Somerset
Devil spoke "low but big;"21A and the Renfrewshire Devil's
voice was " hough and goustie."22
The fact that the Devil was masked and in disguise will
account also for the descriptions of his animal forms. In
England and Scotland he appeared occasionally as a dog,
a deer, a horse, a bull, and a cat; the last is sometimes
called a lion, probably because of its size. In France, the
goat was the commonest disguise; it is always said to be
huge, as it would naturally be if it were a man' in a goat-
skin, and it was said to speak like a person. On its head
were horns, generally three, sometimes four or even eight;
between the horns was the sacred fire from which the
witches lit their torches and candles. He was literally the
God of light frorm whom his worshippers obtained light,
and the name of Lucifer was singularly appropriate. As
the Sabbaths were held in the darkest hours of the night,
the sight of the incarnate God from whose head issued rays
of splendour must have been very impressive. To his
followers he was truly " a burning and a shining light."
The Devil sometimes donned or doffed the disguise in
the presence of his worshippers. Janet Watson of
Dalkeith2^ and Margaret Hamilton of Borrowstowness24 both
acknowledged that the Devil came to them in human form
and went away as a black dog. Helen Guthrie of Forfar
described a scene in which " the devil was there present
20 1609. De Lancre, p. 398.
2°A 1648. Stearne, p. 13.
21 id., p. 22.
21A 1665. Glanvil, Sadducismus Triumphatus, pt. ii., p. 165.
22 1678. id., p. 295.
23 1661. Pitcairn, III., p. 601.
24 1679. Scots Magazine, 1814, p. 201,
THE GOD OF THE WITCHES 57
with them all in the shape of a great horse," but he was
in the shape of a man when they returned.25 The ritual
masquerade is clearly manifest in the descriptions of the
Devil of the Pays de Labour; "Je diable estoit en forme de
bouc, ayant vne queue, audessoubs vn visage d'homme
noir . . . et n' a parole de ce visage de derriere;"26 and
he was also seen as a man with a face in front and a face
at the back of the head like "le dieu Janus."27
Ritual masking is so well known in both the East and
the West as to call for no comment here. The earliest
example with which I am acquainted is from Egypt,28 and
represents a man wearing a jackal's head and tail, standing
among wild animals and playing on a pipe. This is on one
of the carved slate palettes which belong to the first dynasty
or earlier. The similarity of this figure with the God of
the witches, as described by the witches themselves, lies
not only in the animal disguise but also in the musical
instrument used, the Devil being always said to play on
the pipe.29 The latest form of the mask survived in this
country till within a few years ago as the "Dorset Ooser,"
a wooden mask with bull's horns; the wearer was wrapped
in an ox-skin,30 and apparently represented an animal.
The reason for the animal mask will be found when
taken in connection with one of the chief features of the
witch ritual, namely, the dance. Throughout the world
dancing is practised as an act of worship. The two main
forms are the victim-dance and the fertility-dance. In the
25 1661. Kinloch and Baxter, Reliquice Antiques ScoticcB, pp. 122-3.
26 1609. De Lancre, p. 126.
27 id., p. 68.
28 Quibell, Hierakonpolis, II., pi. xxviii.
29 Petrie has shown (Ancient Egypt, 1917, p. 26 seq.) that the art of
these carved palettes was not indigenous in. Egypt, but was brought
in from the north. It is possible 'therefore that the figures of men with
animal heads, so common in the religious sculptures of Egypt, were the
artistic representation of a religion which also had a foreign origin.
30Elsworthy, Horns of Honour, p. 139, fig. 65.
58 M. A. MURRAY
victim-dance the victim stands in the middle, while the wor-
shippers move round him in a ring. The fertility-dance is
sometimes very complicated; and the dancers, or at any
rate their leader, imitate the actions, or are disguised in
the likeness, of the animal whose increase is desired.
Fertility-dances of this kind can still be found in out-of-
the-way parts of Europe. At Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port in the
Basque country, in the very neighbourhood where de Lancre
suppressed the witch-religion, the Samalsain, or Horse
dance, is still performed. The leader rides on a hobby-
horse, and is surrounded by attendants who are called
" Satans." The dance, which is very elaborate, represents
the sacrifice of the leader for the sake of fertility.31 This
dance is interesting in connection with the witch cult when
one remembers that in France and Great Britain the Devil
continually appeared as a horse or riding on a horse. And
it becomes still more interesting when one remembers also
that it was in that south-west region of France that the
wild horse was killed for food by palaeolithic man, who
used magic to increase his food supply.
The circular dance is now confined chiefly to children's
games in Western Europe, but originally it had a grim
significance for the "It" who stood in the middle; he was
the destined victim, and his death was often by fire. This
was the case in the witch cult, where the victim was that
" God incarnate, man divine," whom the Christians stig-
matised as the Devil. The detailed accounts of the
sacrifice are from French and Belgian sources. In each
instance 'the Devil was in animal form ; a fact which
suggests that, by the time the details of the religion were
recorded, the sacrifice of an animal had been substituted
for that of a man. The two great French authorities,
Boguet and Bodin, who derived their knowledge at first-
hand from the witches themselves, describe the scene.
31 Moret, Mystdres Egyptiens, p. 247 seq. See also Elsworthy for the
connection of the hobby-horse with the Devil.
THE GOD OF THE WITCHES 59
Boguet says that at the Sabbath the mass was celebrated,
and then " Satan apres auoir prins la figure d'vn Bouc,
se consume en feu, et reduit en cendre, laquelle les Sorciers
recueillent, et cachent pour s'en seruir a 1'execution de
leurs dessins pernicieux et abominables."32 Bodin enters
into more detail : "La se trouuoit vn grand bouc noir,
qui parloit comme vne personne aux assistans, et dansoyent
a 1'entour du bouc : puis vn chacun luy baisoit le derriere
auec vne chandelle ardente : et cela faict, le bouc se con-
sommoit en feu, et de la cendre chacun en prenoit pour
faire mourir. . . Et en fin le Diable leur disoit d'vne voix
terrible des mots, Vengez vous ou vous mourirez."33
Madame Bourignon's girls had the same story, " They
adored a beast with which they committed infamous things,
and then at last they burnt it ; and everyone took up some
of the Ashes, with the which they made Men and Beasts to
languish and die."34 Claire Goessen, a Belgian witch, gives
an eye-witness's evidence of the sacrifice : " Elle s'est laissee
transporter ... a I'assemble'e nocturne de Lembeke, ou,
apres la danse, elle a, comrne tous les assistans, bais6 un
bouc a 1'endroit de sa queue, lequel bouc fut ensuite brule
et ses cendres distributes et emporte"es par les convives."35
The "pernicious and abominable designs" would be, in
modern parlance, "magical practices;" and as the witches
were considered to have power to produce as well as to
blast fertility, it is very probable that originally the ashes of
the victim were used, like the ashes of harvest sacrifices in
so-called savage countries, to strew on the fields, to ensure a
good crop.
In France the circular dance is said to have been usually
round the Devil, who stood or sat in the middle ; but in
Great Britain, where by the time the records were made the
32 Boguet, p. 141.
33 Bodin, Fleau des Demons, pp. 187-8.
34 Bourignon, Parole de Dieu, p. 87 ; Hale, p. 26.
35 Cannaert, p. 50.
60 M. A. MURRAY
sacrifice had become merely traditional, the dances were
round a stone or other inanimate object. The sacrifice
of the Devil in England and Scotland was not by fire, but
by some means not particularised which caused the blood
to be shed; the date of the sacrifice was traditionally the
May-Eve Sabbath, and it was said to be performed by
the fairies. " Every seven years the elves and fairies pay
kane, or make an offering! of one of their children to the
grand enemy of salvation, and they are permitted to
purloin one of the children of men to present to the fiend;
a more acceptable offering], I'll warrant, than one of their
own infernal brood that are Satan's sib allies, and drink a
drop of the deil's blood every May morning."36 A popular
rhyme preserves the same tradition in Yorkshire:—
Half a brock and half a toad, half a yellow yawlin,
Drink a drop of Devil's blood ev'ry May mornin'.
The circular dance round a central personage is the most
ancient of any dance of which we have records. A repre-
sentation of such a dance occurs among! the palaeolithic
paintings at Cogul in Spain, where a group of women are
shown moving round a male figure who stands hi the
middle.37 The scene and the central figure are such as
are described by the witches, especially those from the
Basque country.
The reference to a two-faced deity opens up another line
of research, for such a god seems to be purely European.
A two-headed god is found in Egypt as early as the
nineteenth dynasty, about B.C. 1300, but the two-faced god
does not occur there till the Roman period and is then
distinctly of foreign introduction. De Lancre suggests the
likeness to Janus, and the attributes of that god confirm the
suggestion. Janus as Clusivius and Patulcius, the Opener
and Closer (i.e., of the womb) is clearly a god of fertility,38
36 Cunningham, Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish
Peasantry, p. 251.
37 Spearing, The Childhood of Art, fig. 73.
38 Roscher, Lexikon: " lanus."
THE GOD OF THE WITCHES 61
as the god of beginnings he was also the god of birth, and
as the deity invoked by the Salian priests in the Lupercalia
he again presided over human fertility. At the same time
he was patron of cross-roads, and this suggests another con-
nection with the witch-cult, for one of the regular meeting-
places of witches was at the cross-roads in the middle of,
or just outside, a village. Why cross-roads should be
chosen 'for these meetings, and why also they should be
credited with magical properties, is not clear. As early
as the time of Ezekiel (xxi. 21) they were looked upon as
places of divination, and the witches were essentially
diviners. The superstitious dread of cross-roads, which is
still to be found in England, is generally regarded as the
horror caused by the burial of suicides at the spot, but it
may equally well be due to a folk-memory of the ancient
heathen rites practised in those places.
There is a considerable amount of evidence indicating a
close connection between witches and fairies. By fairies
I mean that dwarf race which appears to have inhabited
Western Europe at an early period. Mac Ritchie in his
Testimony of Tradition has brought forward proofs that the
legends of fairies, elves, brownies, and dwarfs, preserve
many real facts concerning the race. He shows that they
were a small people, living in underground dwellings to
which they took the women and children of the " upper
world;" they were skilled workers in stone and metal,
and they danced circular dances to music on heaths and
other open spaces, especially on May-Eve and Allhallow-
Eve. Many of the witches encountered fairies, and their
accounts tally to a great extent with the stories of the jLittle
People. The Devil was of great importance among the
fairies, he had the right of entry into the fairy mounds, the
Queen of Elfin was often seen in his company, and in the
old ballads he is said to have claimed a human sacrifice
every seven years from the fairies. John Walsh, a witch
of Dorset, acknowledged that he obtained his magical
62 M. A, MURRAY
powers of diagnosing diseases from the fairies, of whom
" ther be iii. kindes, white, greene, and black."39 Bessie
Dunlop of Lyne in Ayrshire had a visit from the Queen
of Elfame, " a stout woman, who sat down and asked for
a drink." Later, the Queen sent a man called Thorn Reid
to Bessie. This Thorn Reid, though never spoken of as
the Devil, had all the characteristics of that personage, and
Bessie was condemned and executed for having "con-
ference " with him " to take counsel or to do some act," as
Coke puts it. Thorn Reid on one occasion introduced her
to "the good witches from the court of Elfame."40 Alison
Peirson of Byrehill in Fifeshire was accused "for haunting
and repairing with the good neighbours and Queen of
Elfame, these divers years bypast, as she had confesst
by her dispositions, declaring that she could not say readily
how long she was with them; and that she had friends
at that court which was of her own blood, who had good
acquaintance of the Queen of Elphane."41 Andro Man of
Aberdeen actually had children by the Queen of Elfin. He
believed " the devil thy master, whom thou terms Christsun-
day to be an angel and God's godson, albeit he has a
thraw by God, and sways to the Cueen of Elphin. — Thou
affirms that the Queen of Elphin has a grip of all the craft,
but Christsunday is the goodman, and has all power under
God."42 Isobel Gowdie had a great deal of information, but
unfortunately the recorder thought her statements irrelevant
and therefore cut short the evidence with a curt " etc. "
"The Qwein of Fearrie is brawlie clothed in whyt linens,
and in whyt and browne cloathes, etc ; and the King
of Fearrie is a braw man, weill favoured, and broad faced,
etc. Ther wes elf-bullis rowtting and skoylling wp and
downe thair, which affrighted me." This account makes
39 1566. Examination of John Walsh.
40 1576. Pitcairn, I., pt. ii., pp. 51-6.
41 1588. Pitcairn, I., pt. iii., p. 162. Spelling modernised.
*2 1597. Burton, Criminal Trials, I., p. 253.
THE GOD OF THE WITCHES 63
it clear that the King of Faery and the Devil were two
distinct persons, for the Devil whom Isobel knew was "a
meikle, black, roch man." It is interesting to note that
Isobel did not apparently look upon the fairy king and
queen as in any way supernatural, nor was she in the least
alarmed at entering the fairy mound, though she had a
very natural fear of the savage bulls at the entrance.43 The
dances of the witches are described by Boguet, "estans
telles danses semblables a celles des Fees, vrais Diables
incorporez, qui regnoient il n'y a pas long temps."44 Witches
and fairies are often confounded; even the witches of
Macbeth are spoken of as fairies,45 and a modern writer on
Basque stories says, " In these stories it is evident that the
witch is often a fairy, and the fairy a witch."46
To bring forward all the evidence of identification of
fairies and witches would take too long, but sufficient has
been given to show that there is more than a possibility,
there is an actual probability, that in the witch cult we
catch glimpses of the religion practised by one of the
earliest races of Western Europe. The dwarf peoples were
conquered by incoming nations, and were either driven into
mountain-fastnesses and the ice-bound North, or they
remained more or less in hiding in their original habitats.
On the introduction, first of the Roman religion, then of
the Christian— both with higher ideals and ethics than the
primitive cult — the ancient religion lost its power, and in the
end we find it practised by the more ignorant, though not
necessarily the lower, classes of the community.
Though the dwarf race does not seem to be known in
Western Asia, there are traces of the witch cult in that
region. Of these the most important are the sacrifice of the
God, and the fertility and rain-making rites. I have not
43 1662. Pitcairn, III., pp. 604, 607, 611.
44 Boguet, p. 132.
45 Holinshed, Chronicle of Scotland, p. 171.
46 Wentworth Webster, Basque Legends, p. 49, ed. 1877.
64 M. A. MURRAY
entered into particulars of the two last as they do not come
within the scope of this article, but no one can study the
witch-trials without realising the similarity of the witches
to the sacred men and women of the Near East and India;
of the witches' fertility rites to the religious orgies of
ancient Greece and Syria; and of their rain and storm-
making ceremonies to similar ceremonies in the Eastern
Mediterranean lands.
It may be objected that these customs are common
throughout the world and therefore show no real connection
between Western Europe and Western Asia. This is
possible ; but as there are many small points of similarity-
details which could hardly have arisen spontaneously in
two separate countries — the objection does not hold good.
I will mention only two. Converts from Islam to the witch
cult renounced their previous religion as did the converts
from Christianity. "As our witches are said to renounce
Christ, and despite his sacraments : so do the other forsake
Mahomet, and his lawes."47 Riding on sticks, both on the
ground and in the air, was {another point of similarity. " In
the time of Ibn Munkidh the witches rode about naked on
a stick between the graves of the cemetery of Shaizar.
Similarly they still ride by night on palm sticks through the
air, having stripped themselves stark naked, smeared their
bodies with cow's milk, and abjured Islam in a formula of
renunciation."48 The riding on sticks in the cemetery
closely resembles the actions of the Aberdeen witches, who
"all dansit a devilische danse, rydand on treis/be a lang
space."49
On 'the other hand the influence of East on West is seen
in some of the words. The name of the Great Assemblies
47 Reginald Scot, Bk. XVI., ch. 3; also Doughty, Travels in Arabia
Desert '4, II., p. 1067.
48 Wellhausen, Reste Arab. Heidenthums, p. 159; Doughty, II.,
p. 1 06.
49 1597. Spalding Club Miscellany, I., pp. 164-5, l67-
THE GOD OF THE WITCHES 65
of 'the witches, Sabbath, suggests an Eastern origin. It
cannot 'be from the same root as the Hebrew word, for the
ritual ris utterly opposed to the Jewish, and the number
seven is of no importance to it, the great festivals being
held four times a year, and the local meetings were
irregular 'and not on any fixed day of the week. It is
possible that the word originated by metathesis from the
old French name for these local meetings, esbat "Frolic,
sport." But it might also come from Sabazia, the festival
of the god Sabazius, which was of the same nature as the
orgies of the witches. Another word which shows an East
Mediterranean origin was used by the Somerset witches,
in the festivals of Dionysos the votaries shouted evot"; at
the witch festivals in the marsh country at the mouth of
the Severn — festivals which were of the same riotous
character as those of Bacchus— the witches shouted the
same word, rendered phonetically by the ignorant recorder
as "A Boy."
It seems certain then that in this religion, as in others,
there was interchange between the East and the West. But
having regard to the antiquity of the witch cult in Europe,
it seems to me that the balance of evidence is in favour of
its originating in the West, and being carried thence to
the East.
THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
Malachi iii. 20 (iv. 2)
By MAURICE A. CANNEY.
THE Hebrew £$?, kdndph, in the O. T. most often means
"wing;" but it means also "extremity," especially in the
sense of the "corner" or "skirt" of a garment, and
sometimes, in the plural, of the " corners " or " ends " of
the earth. In Talmudic Hebrew the word denotes wing,
arm, hand, foot, corner or end, and in fact any extremity
in animate or inanimate things. In Targumic Aramaic the
term (kenapk) denotes either wing, the arm or foot
(extremity) of the body, or the corner or end of a garment,
etc. In the Aramaic Panammu inscription (740 B.C.) PpD
is found with the meaning " corner " or " skirt " of a
robe (Mark Lidzbarski, Handbuch der N ordsemitischen
Eptgraphik,\%9$). The Syriac equivalent (same consonants)
means wing, extremity, fringe (of a garment), lap, branch,
etc. In the sense of the (four) corners of the earth the
Feminine plural of the Hebrew word, kendphoth, is used ;
in the sense of wings the Dual (masc.), kendphayim (pair
of wings); in the sense of skirts of a garment the Dual
(masc.) or apparently the Masculine plural.
Kdndph is used of the loose flowing end or skirt of
the outer garment or robe ( bTD, me'll) worn by men
of rank (i Sam. xv. 27, etc.). Another word for the skirts
of such a robe is D^BT, shiiltm (Exod. xxviii. 34, xxxix.
24, Isa. vi. i, etc.). The Dual or the Plural (masc.) of
67
68 MAURICE A. CANNEY
( D^D33 ) denotes the skirts of a garment in Jer. ii. 34,
Ezek. v. 3 ; and in Num. xv. 38 corresponds to the
Feminine plural mB33, kenaphoth, which in Deut. xxii. 12
is used of the (four) ends or corners of the clothing
(kesuth) lit. " covering "). The Dual (masc.) in the sense
of (a pair of) wings is used frequently of birds and of the
Cherubim, and sometimes of the Seraphim. Figuratively,
God or Yahweh (Jehovah) is represented as a bird (probably
an eagle) in the shade or shelter of whose wings men may
take refuge (Ruth ii. 12, Ps. xvii. 8, xxxVi. 8, Ivii. 2,
Ixi. 5, Ixiii. 8, xci. 4).
The above note is by way of introducing an interpreta-
tion of the passage Malachi iii. 20 (iv. 2) which is
different from that commonly accepted. Here we read:
"But unto you that reverence my name shall the sun of
righteousness arise with healing in ... (Heb. rPB333 ),
and ye shall go forth, and gambol as calves of the stall."
The Septuagint has "with healing in his wings;" but
the Syriac renders " with healing on his tongue " (tongue
from the sense of flame probably). The word omitted by
me in the translation is rendered usually "in his (lit. her
or its) wings." We are told that "the phrase 'in its
wings' at once suggests the winged solar disk of Egypt,
Babylonia, Assyria, and Persia. This representation was
doubtless known in Judah at this time, either through
borrowing from without or as having been inherited from
a remote antiquity in Israel itself as in the rest of the
oriental World " (J. M. Powis Smith, Commentary on the
Book of Malachi in ICC; cp. S. R. Driver in the Century
Bible). It is the purpose of the present writer not indeed
to deny the possibility of this explanation, but to point
out that it cannot be accepted as unquestionable or un-
questioned. One would except other allusions to the wings
of the sun. The Hebrews speaki of " the wings of the wind "
(i Sam. xxii. n, Ps. xviii. 10, civ. 3; cp. Hos. iv. 19), a
very appropriate figure, but not elsewhere of the wings of
THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 69
the sun. The nearest parallel seems to be Ps. cxxxix. 9,
which Cheyne translates (in the Dry den Library), "If I
lift up the wings of the dawn, and settle at the farther end
of the sea," and explains : if I could fly with the speed with
which the dawn spreads over the sky. But the parallel is
by no means exact.
My suggestion is that in Malachi iii. 20 (iv. 2) PPB333,
ought perhaps to be translated not '* in his (or its) wings,"
but " in his (or its) skirts." The figure is of the skirts
of the glorious robe that flows from the sun (cp. "the
robe of righteousness" in Isa. Ixi. 10, where yesha\ "sal-
vation," is added as a parallel to seddkah, " righteousness :"
"I will greatly rejoice in Yahweh, my soul shall exult in
my God, for he hath clothed me with the garments of
salvation (yesJia1), he hath covered me with the robe of
righteousness (me'll seddkah], as a bridegroom decketh him-
self priestlike with a garland, and as a bride adorneth
herself with her jewels "). A sudden manifestation of
Yahweh's righteousness will dispel the darkness of Israel's
afflictions : " the sun of righteousness will arise (shine forth)
with healing (salvation) in its train." In the vision of
Isaiah (Isa. vi. i) the prophet sees a manifestation of
Adonay (Yahweh), and his loose-flowing skirts (here U^yw
shulmi) appear to fill the temple. In Psalm civ. I, 2
Yahweh is depicted as wearing a cloak of light, splendour,
and glory (a cloak or robe of righteousness and salvation
with which he may clothe also his faithful servants, Isa.
Ixi. 10): "My soul, bless Jehovah! O Jehovah my God,
thou art very great, thou hast robed thee in glory and
grandeur. He wraps himself in light as in a mantle, he
stretches out the heavens like a tent curtain" (Cheyne's
translation in the Dry den Library). We may compare with
this and with Malachi iii. 20 (iv. 2) the passage in Wisdom
v. 6, where we find the expression " the light of righteous-
ness1' and where sun is added as a parallel to light:
"and the light of righteousness shone not upon us, yea
70 MAURICE A. CANNEY
and the sun rose not for us." In Psalm xix. 4 the sun
is said to be like a bridegroom coming forth from his tent
or canopy and like a hero rejoicing to run his course.
Thus, even accepting the text as it stands, it is by no
means certain that there is any thought of the winged
solar disk. But there is still another possibility. P. Riessler
(Die kleinen Propheten> 1911) suggests that the words KB1Q1
iTDJSa are an explanatory gloss which has crept into the
text from the margin. Kendpheha is a misunderstanding
of an abreviation for kenaphayim, which Riessler translates
** brackets " (two wings). The words mdrpe' bi-kendphayim
are a marginal gloss on npis (righteousness): ' KB1D
in brackets." That such scribal curiosities do appear in
the text of the Old Testament is practically certain. In
Hosea ix. 13 the scribe seems to have written down some
words which he found obscure, for he adds apparently
" as I see (it)." Another scribe seems to have added after
this the correct text. So again in Joel i. 17 we seem to
find an obscure passage to which a later scribe has added
the correct text (see J. A. Bewer's Commentary on Joel
in ICC] In Amos ii. 10 it is possible, as P. Riessler
ingeniously conjectures, that the Hebrew for " in the wilder-
ness forty years" ("led you in the wilderness forty years
to possess the land of the Amorite") is due to another
misunderstanding of an abbreviation in an explanatory
note. He suggests that the words denote " Numbers,
Deuteronomy:" "led you [Numbers, Deuteronomy] to take
possession of the land of the Amorite."
REVIEWS
Egyptian Records of Travel in Western Asia, Vol. II., by
David Paton, published by Humphrey Milford on behalf
of the Princeton University Press, 1916, pp. 60, 3 2/6 net.
THE second volume of Mr. Paton's monumental work has
now appeared, and the faults and virtues are even more
apparent now that there are two volumes in existence than
when there was only one. Unfortunately one's first im-
pression is confirmed, which is that the cumbersome method
of presentation overweights the real value of the work. The
time and thought bestowed on the arrangement of each
page, not to speak of the care required in the mechanical
carrying out of that arrangement, are practically wasted,
as the detail is both complicated and overwhelming. No
one will take the trouble to use the transliteration with its
complexity of numerals and brackets. To compile that
column was labour wasted, and labour too of no mean
order. Specialist books of reference to be of real value
should be simplified as much as possible, and it is just here
that Mr. Paton fails. The introduction to each inscription,
giving every publication of the text, is extremely valuable;
and the geographical names placed in the margin at the
side of the text conduce to ease of reference; but beyond
this the book is a monument of untiring labour and patient
accuracy which, though beyond all praise, is not suited
to a student's needs. The absence of the hieroglyphs is
a serious loss. As the whole book is reproduced by
photography, it would have been possible to write the
hieroglyphs — as in Erman's Chrestomathie — and then have
them photographed down to the scale required. Such a
72 REVIEWS
method would have made the book more complete, ai
rendered the student independent of the other publicatioi
which he is now obliged to consult every time he wisht
to refer to a geographical detail. Seeing the reputation fc
extraordinary accuracy which Mr. Paton has made fc
himself in these volumes, it is certain that any text pul
lished by him in this way could be used with perfe<
confidence, and all students realise the importance of
good text. It is to American scholarship that we 1<
for accuracy in details, and here Mr. Paton will never fail.
M. A. MURRAY.
Manual of a Mystic. Being a Translation from the Pi
and Sinhalese work entitled " The Yogavacha]
Manual," by F. L. Woodward, M.A. Edited, with Ii
troductory Essay, by Mrs. Rhys Davids. Published fc
the Pali Text Society by Humphrey Milford, 1911
pp. xix., 159, 5/- net.
THIS is a very interesting addition to the literature of the
Pali Text Society, as well as to the literature in general of
mysticism and of what more or less corresponds to it.
The first Singhalese manuscript of the Yogdvachara printed in
European characters was edited for the Pali Text Society
and published in 1896. In his Introduction to the text,
Professor Rhys Davids wrote : " There is little doubt as to
the great interest and importance, both from the historical
and from the psychological point of view, of the subject
treated in this manual. We have no other work in JBuddhist
literature, either Pali or Sanskrit, devoted to the details of
Jhana and Samadhi."
The Manual gives no indication as to the date of its
composition, but Mr. D. B. Jayatilaka, who contributes an
Appendix to the Translation, thinks that to judge from its
Sinhalese passages, it is a work of the eighteenth century.
REVIEWS 73
As such, . " it affords interesting evidence of one phase of
religious activity, resulting from the reforming labours,
during this period, of Pindapatika Saranankara, the last of
the Sangharajas. The Siamese monks who came over to
Ceylon about, or shortly before, this period would seem to
have had a hand in the revival and encouragement of
samddhi meditation. The manual can hardly have been
composed a,t an earlier period, that is to say, in the six-
teenth or seventeenth century, for at that time Buddhism
in Ceylon was sadly decadent, and presumably samddhi and
j/nma were little practised among the monks.
Mrs. Rhys Davids in her valuable introductory essay
points out that there is no Pali equivalent for " mystic,"
and that the term " mysticism " does not occur at all in
the Manual. But " in that this Manual shows a belief in
the possibility of inducing abnormal, ecstatic consciousness
by method and effort, instead of leaving such visitations
to possible but unsought conjunctures, it merits the name of
4 mystic.' ' The collective name used by the Buddhists
for such studies is samadhi, a term which means literally
" collective, or continual fitting together," and is defined
exegetically as " right (samma) placing of consciousness on
object."
MAURICE A. CANNEY.
Ou>en Charles Whitehouse, by Miss Whitehouse, Cambridge,
Heffer & Sons, 1916, pp. x., 188, 3/- net.
THIS little volume gives an account of one of the greatest
Old Testament scholars of our time; it was worse than a
misfortune that he was never given an opportunity to make
full use of his exceptional gifts and attainments. He is
best known by his translation of Schrader's Keilinschriften
und das Alte Testament; though he also did much other
valuable and scholarly work, notably contributions to Bible
74 REVIEWS
Dictionaries, etc. His Schrader was not a mere translation;
it included important notes and additions of his own. There
are an appreciation by Mr. Stanley Cook ;and a bibliography
which indicates the extent and character of Dr. Whitehouse's
contributions to the literature of his subject. Dr. Andrews
adds an interesting account of his " Religious Faith."
He exercised a gracious and helpful influence over many
generations of Cheshunt students, and his friendship was of
inestimable value to those who had the privilege of knowing
him personally. As Mr. Cook writes: "His life, like his
courtly and kindly demeanour to all who had the privilege
of knowing him, manifested the Christian, the gentleman,
and the scholar."
Miss Whitehouse has done her work well; those who
knew Dr. Whitehouse will prize a memoir which recalls
vividly his attractive personality, and others will be glad to
make his acquaintance in this way.
W. H. BENNETT.
PUBLICATIONS OF THE
MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS
PROFESSOR ELLIOT SMITH.
" THE MIGRATIONS OF EARLY CULTURE, si- net.
"THE INFLUENCE OF ANCIENT EGYPTIAN CIVILISATION IN
THE EAST AND IN AMERICA." I/- net.
"SHIPS AS EVIDENCE OF THE MIGRATIONS OF EARLY
CULTURE." i/- net.
"INCENSE AND LIBATIONS & DRAGONS AND RAIN GODS."
(In the press. )
W. J. PERRY.
"MEGALITHIC CULTURE IN INDONESIA." (In the press. )
"THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE GEOGRAPHICAL DIS-
TRIBUTION OF MEGALITHIC MONUMENTS AND ANCIENT
MINES." 1/6 net
"THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF TERRACED CULTI-
VATION AND IRRIGATION." 1/6 net.
Manchester : At the University Press
12 Lime Grove, Oxford Road, Manchester
Longmans, Green 6° Co.
London : 39 Paternoster Row
New York : 443-445 Fourth Avenue and Thirtieth Street
Chicago : Prairie Avenue and Twenty-fifth Street
Bombay : Hornby Road
Calcutta : 6 Old Court House Street
Madras : 167 Mount Road
PUBLICATIONS OF THE
MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS
J.WILFRID JACKSON.
" SHELLS AS EVIDENCE OF THE MIGRATIONS OF EARLY
CULTURE," Illustrated. 7/6 net
T. ERIC PEET.
"THE STELA OF SEBEK-KHU," THE EARLIEST RECORD OF
AN EGYPTIAN CAMPAIGN IN ASIA. 2/6 net.
Miss M. A. MURRAY AND OTHERS.
"THE TOMB OF TWO BROTHERS." 5/- net.
Manchester : At the University Press
12 Lime Grove, Oxford Road, Manchester
Longmans, Green 6r> Co.
London : 39 Paternoster Row
New York : 443-449 Fourth Avenue and Thirtieth Street
Chicago : Prairie Avenue and Twenty-fifth Street
Bombay : Hornby Road
Calcutta : 6 Old Court House Street
Madras : 167 Mount Road
JOURNAL
OF THE
MANCHESTER EGYPTIAN AND ORIENTAL
SOCIETY
1917-1918
PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
( H. M. MCKECHNIE, SECRETARY )
12 LIME GROVE, OXFORD ROAD, MANCHESTER
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
LONDON I 39 PATERNOSTER ROW
NEW YORK : 443-449 FOURTH AVENUE
AND THIRTIETH STREET
CHICAGO : PRAIRIE AVENUE
AND TWENTY-FIFTH STREET
BOMBAY : HORNBY ROAD
CALCUTTA: 6 OLD COURT HOUSE STREET
MADRAS : 167 MOUNT ROAD
JOURNAL OF THE MANCHESTER
EGYPTIAN AND ORIENTAL
SOCIETY
MANCHESTER
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
12 LIME GROVE, OXFORD ROAD
LONGMANS, GREEN & CO.
LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, ETC.
1918
CONTENTS
PAGE
List of Officers and Members of the Society 6
Objects of the Society 7
Statement of Receipts and Expenditure ...... 8
Position of the Society at end of Session 1917-1918 .... 9
Proceedings of the Session :
Prof. Flinders Fetrie on Scarabs with Designs . . . .10
Mr. A. M. Blackman on The Ceremonies performed at the
Embalming of an Egyptian Mummy 12
Dr. Berlin on Three El and Elohim Psalms 15
Mr. I. Wassilevsky on Modern Hebrew Poetry . . . .16
Prof. G. Elliot Smith on The Story of the Flood . . . .17
Books and Pamphlets received since September, 1917 . . . .20
Special Papers and Articles :
The Earliest Articulate Chinese Philosopher, Kwan-tsz. By
E. H. Parker 23
The Arrangement of the Old Testament. By W. H. Bennett . 43
The Giver of Life. By G. Elliot Smith 53
A Stamp Seal from Egypt. By Winifred M. Crompton . . 59
The Hebrew r6v, By Maurice A. Canney 65
Some New Publications 69
MANCHESTER EGYPTIAN AND ORIENTAL SOCIETY
SESSION 1917-1918
List of Officers and Members
President
The Right Rev. THE BISHOP OF SALFORD(L. C. CASARTELLI, D.Litt.Or., D.D.)
Vice-Presidents
The Vice-Chancellor of the University (Sir HENRY MIERS, M.A., Ph.D., D.Sc., F.R.S.)
The Right Rev. THE LORD BISHOP OF
LINCOLN (E. L. HICKS, D.D.)
F. A. BRUTON, M.A.
Principal R. M. BURROWS, D.Litt. (King's
College, London)
S. H. CAPPER, M.A.
T. W. RHYS DAVIDS, LL.D., Ph.D.,
F.B.A.
Hon. Professor W. BOYD DAWKINS, M./
D.Sc., F.R.S.
A. H. GARDINER, D.Litt.
JESSE HAWORTH, LL.D.
W. EVANS HOYLE, M.A., D.Sc., M.R.C.S
Professor E. H. PARKER, M.A.
Professor A. S. PEAKE, M.A., D.D.
Professor G. ELLIOT SMITH, M.A., M
F.R.S.
Other Members of the Council
Ven. Archdeacon ALLEN, M.A.
Rev. C. L. BEDALE, M.A.
Principal W. H. BENNETT., M.A., D.D.,
Litt.D.
Professor M. A. CANNEY, M.A.
Mrs. RHYS DAVIDS, M.A.
Professor A. C. DICKIE, M.A., F.S.A.,
F.R.I.B.A.
Miss CAROLINE HERFORD, M.A.
Mrs. HOPE W. HOGG, M.A.
Professor Sir T. H. HOLLAND, K.C.I.E
D.Sc., F.R.S.
Mrs. W. HARTAS JACKSON
THE LIBRARIAN OF THE RYLAK
LIBRARY (Mr. H. GUPPY, M.A.)
Principal MARSHALL, M.A., D.D.
Rev. J. A. MEESON, M.A., LL.B.
T. ERIC PEET, M.A.
W. M. TATTERSAL, D.Sc.
Rev. W. L. WARDLE, M.A., B.D.
Honorary Secretaries
Professor M. A. CANNEY, M.A. (Editor-Secretary)
Miss W. M. CROMPTON (.Treasurer-Secretary)
Sir FRANK FORBES ADAM
P. J. ANDERSON
H. ALLAN
Dr. ASHWORTH
Dr. C. J. BALL
Miss A E. F. BARLOW
Dr. BERLIN
C. H. BICKERTON
Dr. J. S. BLACK
G. BONNERJEE
Miss E. E. BOUGHEY
R. A. BURROWS
Miss M. BURTON
Wm. BURTON
Professor W. M. CALDER
Mrs. CANNEY
Mrs. CAWTHORNE
Miss CAWTHORNE
F. O. COLEMAN
Professor R. S. CONWAY
Dr. DONALD CORE
Other Members of the Society
R. H. CROMPTON
Professor T. W.DAVIES
Miss DAVISON
W. J. DEAN
C. W. DUCKWORTH
Mrs. ECKHARD
M. H. FARBRIDGE
Col. PHILIP FLETCHER
Mrs. PHILIP FLETCHER
Rev. T. FISH
Miss K. HALLIDAY
F. J. HARDING
J. S. HARDMAN
Mrs. JESSE HAWORTH
H. A. HENDERSON
Miss MONICA HEYWOOD
Professor S. J. HICKSON
Miss JACKSON
Canon C. H. W. JOHNS
Miss E. F. KNOTT
Mrs. LANGFORD
J. H. LYNDE
Rev. H. M. McLACHLAl
E. MELLAND
Dr. ALPHONSE MINGA!
B. RODRIGUEZ-PEREI
Miss M. ROEDER
H. LING ROTH
B. C. RYDER
J. PADDOCK SCOTT
Major SAMUELS
Mrs. SALIS SIMON
Rev. D. C. SIMPSON
Mrs. ELLIOT SMITH
Rev. W. T. STONESTRE
Rev. W. THOMAS
T. G. TURNER
Rev. J. BARTON TURN1
Professor G. UNWIN
H. WELD-BLUNDELL
Miss K. WILKINSON
OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY
(i.) To discuss questions of interest with regard to the
languages, literatures, history and archaeology of Egypt
and the Orient.
(ii.) To help the work of the excavating societies in any
way possible.
lii.) To issue, if possible, a Journal. If this is not possible,
to print at least a Report, including abstracts of the
papers read at the meetings of the Society.1
SUBSCRIPTIONS
(a) For ordinary members, 55. per annum (student mem-
bers, 2s. 6d.).
(£) For Journal members, los. 6d., of which 53. 6d. is assigned
to the Special Publications Fund.
Subscriptions are due in January.
PUBLICATIONS
Journal of the Manchester Oriental Society for 1911,
published 1912 . . . . . 55. od. net.
Journal of the Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society
for 1912, published 1913; for 1913, published 1914;
for 1914, published 1915; for 1915, published 1916;
for 1916, published 1917; for 1917, published 1918 5s.od.net.
Manchester Egyptian Association Report, 1909-1912 . each os. 3d. net.
Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society Report, 1912-13,
1913-14,1914-15,1915-16,1916-17,1917-18 . . is.6d.net.
List of Books on Egyptology published September, 1912, to
September, 1913, and Catalogue of Library of the
Society . . . . . os. 6d. net.
New Members can buy back numbers at half-price.
1 There is a Special Publications Fund, for which subscriptions and donations are invited.
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REPORT
OF THE
MANCHESTER EGYPTIAN AND ORIENTAL SOCIETY
1918
POSITION OF THE SOCIETY
AT END OF SESSION 1917-1918
FIVE meetings were held during the session. Details are
given on pp. 10-19.
The attendance was better than in the previous year.
We have sustained a great loss through the death of
Mr. George Stephen Woolley, late of Fairhill, Kersal. He
was one of the original members of the Manchester Egyptian
Association, having been present at the preliminary meeting
on ist October 1906, and after the amalgamation with the
Manchester Oriental Society he was a generous supporter of
the Publications Fund.
The number of members who have resigned, or allowed
their subscriptions to lapse, is five. Among the six new
members we may note with special satisfaction the name of
Dr. Berlin, who has so kindly delivered before us two delightful
addresses. The total number of members is 94.
Amongst the books added to our collection the most
important are : Cambodge, Fetes Civiles et Religieuses, by
9
io REPORT
Adhemard Leclerc; Prof. Petrie's two new and profusely illus-
trated volumes, Scarabs and Cylinders with Names, and Weapons
and Tools. Of the volume on Scarabs we are fortunate enough
to possess two copies, one due for our subscription, the other
presented by Miss Hewitt, of High Street. Mr. Ling Roth
has given us Prof. Petrie's volumes, Koptos and Naqada and
Ballas. The last is out of print and is valued considerably
above its published price, so this is a specially valuable gift.
The Balance Sheet of the Society will be found on p. 8.
It will be seen that, considering the war, the finances are in
a satisfactory state. Up to this year, the Report and Journal
have been printed entirely from the sum derived from the sub-
scriptions and donations of Journal members. It is felt,
however, that as the ordinary members (those subscribing
5s. only) have received a Report each year, it is fair that the
cost of the Report should be defrayed from the ordinary funds
of the Society, and the Council have, therefore, sanctioned a
transference of £6 from this source to the Publications Fund.
Mrs. Philip Fletcher has repeated her kind donation of £5,
and this enables us to publish this Report and Journal without
misgiving.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE SESSION
1917-1918
THE Annual Meeting and First Meeting of the new Session
was held at the University on October 1st, the Bishop of
Salford in the chair. Before proceeding to ordinary business,
the Bishop of Salford moved from the chair a vote of condolence
on the death of Dr. James Hope Moult on, late President of the
Society. As an Iranian scholar and expert, Dr. Casartelli
spoke particularly of the great loss to Iranian scholarship.
REPORT ii
Professor A. S. Peake, in seconding the vote, referred specially
to Dr. Moulton's brilliant achievements in the field of study
of New Testament Greek. By the death of Dr. Moulton the
Society had lost a scholar of the greatest distinction, a supporter
of great enthusiasm, and a friend of charming personality.
The Meeting next proceeded to elect or re-elect officers. The
Bishop of Salford was re-elected President ; Professor Maurice
A. Canney, Editor-Secretary, and Miss W. M. Crompton,
Treasurer-Secretary. Miss Crompton, when called upon to
report progress, was able to give an account of the position
of the Society which, considering war conditions, was very
satisfactory. The President then called upon Professor
Flinders Petrie to give his promised lecture on " Scarabs with
Designs." The lecturer pointed out that scarabs with designs
are more numerous than scarabs with names ; but they had
never yet been catalogued or discussed seriously as regards
their meaning, etc. When we seek to discover their meaning,
we may well look to the scarabs with inscriptions for a clue.
Do these suggest that the scarabs were used for the benefit of
the living or the dead ? The greater number come from towns
(civic scarabs extolling the city). Hundreds are found in
Memphis every year. From this we may infer that the scarabs
were intended for the use of the living rather than of the dead.
The inscriptions which are prayers for children support this
inference. Further, no reference is found to scenes in the
Book of the Dead. Only a very small percentage of scarabs
could by any possibility be explained as for the use of the dead.
Thus the scarabs were worn and used by the living like amulets
to ensure the protection of the gods. The Egyptians were
highly sensitive to beauty of form, and geometrical scarabs
with scrolls would seem to have been worn simply as emblems
of beauty or fineness. The lecture was illustrated by excellent
lantern-slides. First, buttons with designs were shown and
explained as the precursors of scarabs with designs. As objects
intermediate between buttons and scarabs were shown centre-
pieces of necklaces. At the conclusion of the lecture a hearty
vote of thanks to Professor Flinders Petrie was proposed
12 REPORT
by Professor Maurice A. Canney, and seconded by Professor
Arthur S. Peake.
The Second Meeting of the Session was held at the Univer-
sity on November 6th, 1917, Professor G. Elliot Smith in
the chair. Mr. A. M. Blackman, M.A., gave an address on
' The Ceremonies Performed at the Embalming of an Egyptian
Mummy/' As far as he was aware, only one representation of
the actual occurrence of a death has survived among the tomb
paintings of Egypt. This is in the Mast aba of Ankhmehor at
Saqqara (see Bissing, " Denkmaler ^Egyptischer Sculptur,"
18 B), and shows the relations in attitudes of frantic grief and
the widow fainting. Such scenes recur regularly in modern
Egypt at a death or funeral. After the death the body was
soon placed in the embalmer's hands, except about the Twenty-
first Dynasty, when it was the custom to wait till decomposition
had set in, as this facilitated the processes employed at that
period. The embalmer's workshop was called " the place of
purification of the good house " ; more briefly, the " good house "
or " the place of purification/' The embalming, wrapping, and
coffining were religious ceremonies of deep signification, sup-
posed to be the same rites as those originally performed at the
funeral of Osiris, and the officiants therein personated the
divinities who took part in their institution. The earliest de-
scriptions of these rites known are in the Pyramid Texts of the
Sixth Dynasty. The chief officiants were the " sem " priest,
two great lectors with three assistants, a chief embalmer with
assistants, two female and one male mourner, the latter called
the " hau/' The " sem " priest and the lectors chanted the
formulae. The chief embalmer or chief lector personated the
jackal-headed Anubis, wearing a jackal mask. The subordin-
ates personated the four sons of Horus and the sons of Khen-
tikheti ; the two female mourners played the parts of Isis and
her sister Nepthys.
The chief officiants in the embalmment came to take the
corpse to the " house of purification " after it had been placed
REPORT 13
in a wooden coffin. This coffin was always taken over a stretch
of water, even when this was not in the direct route. The water
in question may have been a sacred lake, specially reserved for
this and similar religious observances. When taken from the
boat the coffin was placed on a couch with the head and legs
of a lion, carried by three men. On arrival at the " good house "
a sumptuous repast was offered to the deceased ; the lector
summoned him to the banquet and another officiant, with hand
uplifted, offered the meal.
Most of the processes of embalmment appear to have been
carried on in a tent adjoining the " good house." On the first
day of embalmment a victim was offered — in a fresco in the
tomb of Pepyonkh at Meir, a tomb the frescoes of which the
lecturer had copied, a slaughtered ox is shown. This tomb con-
tains a very interesting series of scenes depicting the funeral
ceremonies. The embalming processes and ceremonies occupied
seventy days, and included seventeen processions, at any rate
in late times. According to the " Papyrus Rhind " these are
on account of the seventeen members of the body of Osiris,
and one such procession is depicted in the tomb of Pepyonkh,
of the Sixth Dynasty. In another ceremony the mummy
took a voyage on a great lake, called the " great lake of Khons."
A crocodile or model of a crocodile was made to swim beside
the boat, and a model mummy seems to have been put into
the water and conveyed to land on the crocodile's back. This
symbolised the body of Osiris being taken out of the water by
his son Horus who, for the purpose, took the form of a
crocodile.
A very common scene on the walls of ancient tomb chapels
shows the deceased sitting over a large jar or pan, while two
men pour water over him. The water often terminates in the
looped cross, the sign of life, or, in the case of kings, it is a
stream of alternate symbols of life and happiness outpoured
by two gods. Such sprinklings endowed the person affected,
whether alive or dead, with fresh supplies of life. The main
14 REPORT
object of the ceremonies was the mystical reconstruction or
rebirth of the body, and the formulae show that the washing was
often associated with this rebirth. Thus, after washing in the
" Fields of Earu " (the Egyptian paradise), the dead person is
said to receive his bones, and stretch out his indestructible
limbs (Pyramid Texts, 530). The water-pouring of the priests
represented a washing believed to be actually performed by the
gods in the Fields of Earu for the benefit of the deceased. The
same is true of many of the other ceremonies.
Nile water from the first cataract was appointed for the
purification ceremony, and was regarded as the vital fluid that
had exuded from the body of the once dead, but now living,
Osiris. The person or corpse sprinkled was imbued with the
nature of the god. Purification may thus be said to have a
sacramental meaning. All the materials used in the embalming
process had a sacred meaning ; they were generally considered
exudations from the bodies of the gods, whether materials
such as natron and wine, used in washing, or unguents ;
they endued the deceased with the powers of the gods from
whom they emanated. The myrrh or resin with which the
head was smeared enabled the soul to come forth from the
corpse. One unguent protects the deceased and enables him
to go on any road he pleases in any country. Olive oil is the
fat of his enemies. Yet others give deceased his feet, and enable
him to walk. The bandages are said to be made of fibres from
the Fields of Earu. The gold used to gild finger and toe nails
is the essence of Ra, the sun god, and Osiris, and enables the
deceased to walk in the fields of eternity. It also illuminates
the face of the deceased and enables him to breathe. It re-
juvenates him, and he can visit the temples and participate in
the festivals held there. Our fullest authority is The Ritual
of Embalmment, preserved in two fragmentary MSS. of the
Ptolemaic Age. This papyrus, after detailing the various
effects of, and the origin of, these embalming materials, explains
their powers further, thus : " They enter into thy legs, adjust-
ing them for thee ; thou walkest upon a ground of silver, upon
REPORT 15
a floor of gold ; thou walkest upon a pedestal of silver, upon
... a floor of turquoise ; thou goest to the mansion of the
Prince, thou passest on into the chapel in the good days, thou
being as the Phoenix. . . . Thou seest thy name in every
home, thou seest thy soul (bai) in heaven, thy corpse in the
burial vault, thy statues in the temple." The lecturer continued
that while it was impossible to speak positively as to the actual
inner meaning which the Egyptians attached to these words
it appeared to him that these statements apply to some
counterpart of the corpse, which was, by means of these rites
and formulae, enabled to enter upon an active existence. The
power to visit various temples was clearly not bestowed on the
mummy, which lay motionless before the eyes of the chanting
officiants. These, as already said, impersonated divinities,
but it was thought the gods simultaneously performed the rites
in the spirit world, so that it was really they who reconstituted
the deceased. This is clear from all texts, even the extremely
early formulae painted on the walls of the Sixth Dynasty
pyramids at Saqqara.
The further idea that a counterpart body was thought to be
formed by the gods for the spirit world, and that it is to this
body, and not to the actual mummy, that the prayers of the
embalming ceremonies are applied, certainly helps to make
formulae that would otherwise appear very perplexing much
more comprehensible.
The Third Meeting of the Session was held at the Uni-
versity on Monday, January 28th, 1918, the Bishop of Salford
in the chair. Dr. Berlin lectured on " Three El and Elohim
Psalms." The Psalms dealt with were xxix., Iviii. and Ixxxii.,
and the lecture was chiefly concerned with the expressions
" sons of God " (benc Elim) and " gods " (Elim, Elohim). At
tb • root of the words for god is the idea of power. Can the
words be used also of powerful human beings (" the powers
that be ") ? Or where they denote persons other than God,
is it necessary to understand the meaning to be " angels " ?
16 REPORT
Dr. Berlin gave reasons for thinking that the persons referred
to in Psalm Ixxxii. must be human judges, and pointed out
that in Psalm Iviii. this identification is generally admitted.
He then sought to interpret the " sons of God " in Psalm xxix.
in the same way. The persons referred to are the sons of the
mighty, the powerful men on earth, and not, as is often supposed,
the angels, God's ministers and worshippers.
The Fourth Meeting of the Session was held at the Uni-
versity on February 2ist, 1918, Professor Canney in the
chair. Mr. I. Wassilevsky gave a very interesting lecture on
" Modern Hebrew Poetry." The lecturer explained that when
the new love for Zion and the nation awakened in modern times,
it introduced a new stream of life in modern Hebrew literature.
Then, when Dr. Herzl gave to a hitherto abstract idea a realis-
able and tangible form in the Zionist movement, the Harp of
Israel was tuned anew, with the result that in the last twenty-
four years there has arisen a new poetry unknown in the
Hebrew language since the Bible, and superior in beauty,
strength, and delineation of human passions to the Hebrew
poetry of the famous Spanish School of Poets. Putting on
one side the minor and younger poets, such as Kotzinelson,
Steinberg, Sheimonovitch, Finchman, and Mattas, Mr.
Wassilevsky concentrated on the four poets whose position in
Hebrew poetry is assured : Bialik, Tschernihovsky, Cohen,
and Shnaier, all children of the Russian Ghetto. The first
volume of Bialik's works runs into three hundred pages, and
contains about one hundred poems of various lengths. He is
the most popular and best-loved of modern poets, an artist in
every sense of the woid, who has the marvellous faculty of
imitating the style and utterance of the Prophets. There are
many wonderful descriptions of nature in his poems, especially
in the poem, " The Dead of the Wilderness/* In his longest
poem, " The Scroll of Fire/' he embraces mystically the long-
drawn-out tragedy of the years from the destruction of
Jerusalem till the pogroms of 1905. Dr. Saul Tschernihovsky
is an epic rather than a lyric poet, the greatest epic poet of
REPORT 17
Hebrew literature. While Bialik is primarily Ghetto and then
European, Tschernihovsky is European first, and there is hardly
a European metre which cannot be found in his poetry. His
many songs of nature contain wonderful poetic visions. In
his love poems the young delight more in beauty than in
morality. His translations into Hebrew include Longfellow's
" Song of Hiawatha." Jacob Cohen is the poet of the frail and
the elegant, and the least popular of the four poets. There is
not in him the rent soul of the Ghetto Jew, as in Bialik and
Tschernihovsky. Whatever his pain, he buries his distress in
his heart, and his past in the dream of the future. He finds in
nature light and life and legendary worlds. Shnaier, the poet
of the mighty and the sublime, is the youngest of the four.
A man of Byronic temperament, he stands, like Byron, a law
to himself. His poems on women resemble those of Baude-
laire. The poem, " The Song of the Prophet," shows that he
understands the spirit of the nation better than Bialik and
Tschernihovsky. In his wonderful outburst, " The Middle
Ages are Coming," he predicted the present terrible war two or
three years before it broke out. He calls upon his own people
to be the first to awaken, and bids them not to allow the Gentiles
to solve the ancient riddle of the world. He has great faith
in humanity, in spite of a great despair ; and in his poem,
' The Future," he has a vision of the time when men, ceasing
to war against one another, will turn their arms against nature
and strive against creation. His short lyrics are full of the
noise of life, the morning dew, and the freshness of the green
world.
•
The Fifth Meeting of the Session was held at the Uni-
versity on May 7th, 1918, the Bishop of Salford in the chair.
Professor G. Elliot Smith gave an address on " The Story of
the Flood." The Sumerian story of the Flood, he said, which
is at least as old as the beginning of the third millennium B.C.,
was transmitted not merely to Babylonia and Western Asia,
ibut also to Greece and to the uttermost limits of Europe,
where it is preserved in the folk-lore of Wales, Scotland,
18 REPORT
and Ireland. And in the East it spread not merely to India,
the Malay Archipelago and China, but also to Oceania and both
North and South America.
Certain trivial and unessential incidents of the narrative crop
up again and again throughout this wide domain, and proclaim
the fact of the derivation of the common framework of all the
versions, directly or indirectly, from one original source. Local
circumstances supplied merely the corroborative detail and
distinctive embellishments of each particular version. As the
late Sir Edward Tylor pointed out, more than fifty years ago,
" It lies outside all reasonable probability to suppose such
circumstances to have produced the same story in several
different places, nor is it very likely that the dim remembrances
of a number of local floods should accord in this with the
amount of consistency that is found among the flood-traditions
of remote regions of the world."
The original story of the Flood was developed as the culmina-
tion of a series of legends of the destruction of mankind in which
a flood played no part whatever. The attempt to explain its
origin from " inferences founded on the observation of certain
physical facts " (Sir James Frazer's Huxley Lecture on " Ancient
Stories of a Great Flood ") ignores the real etiological factors,
and as a result only obscures the history of the story's develop-
ment instead of elucidating it.
In the earliest version, the " Flood " consisted of the blood
of a human victim whose throat was cut to provide the elixir
of life to rejuvenate the king when his virile powers began
to fail. In the next phase mankind as a whole replaced the
original victim. In a third phase beer, to which red ochre was
added to give it the proper colour as a substitute for blood, was
employed in place of actual blood.
Finally the blood-coloured mixture poured out upon the earth
from seven thousand vessels was confused with the red waters
REPORT I9
of the annual inundation of the Nile. But as the destruction
of mankind (which no longer formed a logical part of the story
once substitutes were found for human blood) had survived as
the central incident of the narrative, the story-teller had to
provide an explanation of it. Mankind was being punished
for its sins, and instead of the slaughtered men providing the
" Flood " of blood, the blood-coloured waters of inundation
were represented as inflicting the vengeance of the gods upon
man.
The psychological factors involved in the development of
the story were discussed, and an explanation was given of the
origin of the various incidents with which it was embellished
in different countries.1
1 See further Professor Elliot Smith's book on this subject, shortly to be issued
by the Manchester University Press, under the title The Story of the Flood.
BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS ADDED TO
THE COLLECTION OF THE SOCIETY
SINCE SEPTEMBER 1917
Books may be borrowed (by members only) by applying to the
Treasurer-Secretary at the Manchester Museum, from
whom also the Catalogue published 1913
may be had, price $d.
The Athenaeum-
Subject Index to Periodicals — Class List, 1916 — Histori-
cal, Political and Economic Sciences (including
Anthropology and Folk-lore).1
Biblical Archaeology-
Proceedings of Society of, Vols. 1917 and 1918 to date.1
Egyptian Society of East Anglia—
Report, 1915-1916, 1916-1917, 1917-1918. 2
John Rylands' Library-
Bulletin to Date.3
Leclerc, Adhemard —
" Le Cambodge. Fetes Civiles et Religieuses." 2
Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society —
Journal, 1916-1917.
Musee Guimet —
" Le Revue de THistoire des Religions," Vol. LXXV., nos.
2 and 3. I9I7-2
Petrie, W. M. Flinders—
" Koptos," pp. 28, pis. 38.*
" Naqada and Ballas," pp. 79, pis. 85.*
" Scarabs and Cylinders with Names," pp. 46, pis. 73,
indices.5
" Tools and Weapons," pp. 73, pis. 79.5
University of Rome —
" Rivista degli Studi Orientali," Vol. VII., fasc. 3, I9i6.2
Wassilevsky, I.—
" Chassidism," pp. 31. 6
" Modern Hebrew Literature," pp. 20. 6
1 Presented by the Publishers. ' 2 Exchange.
3 Presented by the Governors of the Library.
4 Presented by Mr. H. Ling Roth. 5 Presented by Miss Hewitt.
6 Presented by the Author.
20
SPECIAL PAPERS
ARTICLES
THE EARLIEST ARTICULATE CHINESE
PHILOSOPHER, KWAN-TSZ
(350 years junior to Solomon, one generation senior to Solon)
By E. H. PARKER.
ALTHOUGH this man was in a sense a reformer, and based his
system upon the traditional wisdom of the ancient sages and
kings, he seems to be the very first of what may be called the
articulate Chinese philosophers, as he is certainly the first to
apply clear principles to the definite and practical work of
organised government. As Confucius himself frequently speaks
of Kwan-tsz with respect, and at the same time with reserve —
as though certain defects in his character had to be condoned
—this fact both tends to prove that our philosopher's lessons
had been circulated over the Chinese federation of states for
many generations before Confucius' death in 479 B.C., and also
partly explains the circumstance that for two thousand years
past all succeeding dynasties have ignored Kwan-tsz from an
official point of view, whilst at the same time paying ready
attention to the rival claims of Confucius, Laocius and Buddha.
In the Manchester University Review for July, 1906, the early
rivalry of Confucius and Laocius was discussed, with evidences,
in a paper entitled " The Parting of the Ways " ; but here it
may be added that both of these teachers repeat, sometimes
in the original words but oftener in modified phraseology, so
much of Kwan-tsz's sermonising that it seems quite plain they
must have been a casual twain amongst those numerous officials
and scholiasts at the various federal capitals who habitually
received documents from other courts, including Kwan-tsz's
court, to be stowed away for reference in their own local
archives : the reasonableness of this suggestion is vouched
for by the fact that both Confucius (specifically) and Laocius
23
24 E. H. PARKER
(inferentially) declare themselves to be " not originators but
transmitters " of thought.
The leading feature in Kwan-tsz as contrasted with Con-
fucius is his insistence upon the supreme rights of the people,
and the necessity for the ruling classes to subordinate their
personal and family ambitions to popular requirements and
approval. For this political reason, apparently, the literary
excellences and original expressions only of our philosopher's
writings have been transmitted uncensored, so to speak, in
thesaurus, dictionary, or encyclopaedia ; but few if any con-
nected administrative extracts are recorded for reference ;
few if any compliments are paid by emperors to the man's
genius ; it would almost seem as though the Government, age
by age, has preferred to keep the book and the interpretation
thereof in its own hands, just as the interpretation of the Bible
as a connected whole is in some Western lands considered
safer in the hands of professed priests than left with its occa-
sional surprises to shock the uninstructed imaginations of
the mobile vulgus. Before recounting the circumstances under
which this remarkable adviser of the seventh century before
Christ delivered persistent sermons before his reigning lord and
master, I propose to take first one specific subject — to wit, the
qualities to be aimed at by a prince who really wishes to govern
successfully : the words forming each sentence, as the com-
plete sentences themselves, are as nearly as possible literal
translations; but they have been rescued from the scattered
positions in which they occur and regrouped so as to form an
abstract whole, independently of the specific practical matters
under discussion or illustration. It is as though one should
take a volume of Mr. Gladstone's speeches and excise for re-
grouping all sentences specifically mentioning parliamentary
procedure.
The exclusive prince, like a woman who recommends herself,
does not succeed ; he must have friends : words and acts that
do not bear repetition are out of place in a ruler. Do things
THE EARLIEST ARTICULATE CHINESE PHILOSOPHER 25
in time, and show good example to those below. Rule depends
on other things than killing and punishing, just as security de-
pends upon other things than stone walls and strong positions ;
so, again, does wealth depend on other things than mere light
taxation. It does less harm to keep back a good man than to
promote a bad one ; it is better to starve a horse than to pamper
a tiger. On the other hand, a minister must be kind, as well as
able ; he should be genial without being obsequious. Good
example is the way to attract loyal services. To secure a docile
people the fewer demands, ordinances and prohibitions the
better — i.e. if you desire to succeed and not to provoke antagon-
ism ; at the same time over-tenderness is as much an enemy
of the people as system and law are their cherishing parent.
A good prince, though above the law, yet lives within his own
laws, if only to show a good example ; he knows what is needful
and what is harmful : on the other hand, a weak prince is certain
to have internal strife to deal with. A good prince should begin
step by step and develop tao l (i.e. " the way " of nature) in
his own person.
On one occasion the reigning prince confessed to Kwan-tsz
his personal weaknesses for hunting, strong drink and women ;
but the philosopher, whilst, of course, deploring these lapses,
distinctly said : Well, well ! Anything but a weak prince !
Returning to the main point, he went on to say that it was no
duty of a prince to wallow in detail ; he should confine himself
to general principles, and must in any case always be clear,
remembering at the same time that prince and minister are
correlative, the one protecting and the other suggesting ; when
due care is taken to define matters with precision, the people
will not go wrong in their tao. A prince should never attempt
to teach his ministers how to conduct their own departments ;
it is no business of his to be smart, nor must he allow personal
feelings to affect his official judgment. On the other hand,
ministers must not meddle with the prince's prerogative :
1 Tao will be specifically treated of in the final pages ; in modern times
tao-ieh — i.e. the right way and its effects — is an expression often used to denote
" religion " or " right feeling " of any kind, Christian, Chinese, or other.
26 E. H. PARKER
distinctions in status should be carefully observed, and thus a
good prince connotes good officials ; the true tao principle
governing such matters is that ministers should ascribe any
virtue manifested in their own conduct to their immediate
liege, just as the vassal prince credits the King (or, later,
Emperor), and the King or Son of Heaven in turn credits Heaven ;
in each case instead of sounding their own commendation.
The same principle applies to son and father, and also to
ordinary individuals in their attitude towards seniors and
governors : the sacred, the successful, and the illustrious rulers
of ancient times were, in short, precisely those who best per-
ceived and acted upon this tao.
Eavesdroppers and rogues should be kept at a distance,
as should females and discarded parasites ; also fussy busy-
bodies sedulously " carrying out orders," and either getting in
bad officers in place of good ones or shifting good ones without
cause. The prince and his people may be compared with the
heart or mind in relation to the body, the latter receiving the
impulses communicated by the former. Blame yourself rather
than others when misunderstandings occur, and remember,
that the common people invariably detect hidden worth in the
long run : it is not the mere fact that the people say you have
faults that creates your existing faults ; nor need you ask your
own family to corroborate what the people say ; thus we see
how our kings of old always had a wholesome dread of popular
opinion : no man who blames himself as T'ang 2 did need fear
blame by others. There is no such thing as perpetual law and
order ; it all depends upon whether the rulers are good or bad ;
if they indulge too freely in gambling, hunting, dalliance, and
gadding about, the Government goes awry, and punishments
become cruel : good ministers advise for the common weal,
and say : Accept me or drop me. Wise action and wise
words enrich the State and strengthen its military power.
Act boldly in times of peril ; even if, on the actual spot or in
2 Founder, 1760 B.C., of the dynasty whose royal names have not only been
confirmed, but corrected, by the bone inscriptions dug up in A.D. 1898 on the
actual site of that dynasty's capital.
THE EARLIEST ARTICULATE CHINESE PHILOSOPHER 27
the ruler's presence you interpose objection and feel bound to
disapprove, still you can continue to furnish him with your
covert assistance in the background : the main point is to
advise firmly and yourself accept responsibility for your royal
or princely master's error, as the case may be. Be sparing in
eating and drinking. The minister without tao is obsequious
and office-seeking, just as the good one is quite indifferent in
respect to these features of conduct. The corrupt minister
uses his influence to traffic in favours ; he degrades his office
in order to secure riches ; he allows all blame to settle on the
prince, and, whilst approving to his face, objects or thwarts
behind his back : he winks at evil, but is severe with virtue ;
he indulges in feasting and deep drinking ; delights in innova-
tion at the cost of fixed precedent ; he consorts with cliques,
and leaves his prince to bear all censure unsupported.
The prince may be compared with the heart or mind, and
his ministers with the seven (eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth, and
two relief) orifices ; if the heart goes tao, these all mechanically
go tao too. Tao represents the restful heart or the prince,
whilst activity of movement is for ministers, just as it is for
horses, birds, etc., employed in service : in a word, exactly as
the prince is the heart, so are the eyes and ears the kwan 3 or
" functionaries " of seeing and hearing. But there are many
things a good prince must eye warily ; for instance, a bad
employe thinks more of himself than of the State, and he hangs
round the ministers ten times for each single time he seeks the
ruler's good graces ; this feature of private personal interests
takes innumerable forms. There should in State matters be
no two supreme masters and no two decisive wills ; there should
be strict loyalty and no chicanery : a good master should
beware of " cunning words and smirking faces." 4 A parasite
ruler is in every sense quite opposite in principle to the tao of
;t This word kwan, usually translated " mandarin," also signifies the " senses,"
the " five kwan " meaning sight, hearing, smelling, tasting and thinking ;
thus, the " k wan of sight."
4 The quotation is from the ancient Book of History, of course before
Confucius recast it. Confucius in his Analects also quotes these four words.
28 E. H. PARKER
government. The wise prince does not refrain from indulgence
in pleasures and gratifications because he is not fond of them,
but in order to spare his people ; per contra, he does not actually
like 5 giving his private substance away to the deserving or
refusing pardons to the undeserving ; he does both out of
correct policy ; his general attitude should be one of calm
expectancy.
The attainments to be aimed at by the ruler of any state are,
in the main, wealth and power, the object being to keep the
other vassal states in their proper relative places, and to instil
into neighbouring governments a wholesome respect ; in this
way the subordinate states or powers will not venture to trespass
on royal prerogative, even though they may be disappointed
with the share of favour falling to them. Naturally the aims of
an incompetent dominus are the reverse of all this : just as the
mountain's height and majesty are formed from an aggregate
of innumerable lumps of stone and clod, so is the illustrious
ruler's prestige constructed out of the individual men working
under him. An individual who starves himself never gets fat,
nor does a man who is too sensitive to reproaches ever get wise.
A foolish ruler wishes to show himself off personally and ex-
clusively instead of quietly availing himself of other men's
talents. The sovereign should secure both love and fear, and
should make sure of the people's sympathy by himself showing
sympathy with them ; for subject inevitably returns tit-for-tat
in kind to ruler, just as child returns it to parents, being an
equivalent for what they respectively get. A wise prince never
expects the impossible, quite contrary to what the foolish one
does. The intelligent ruler may be compared with the sun,
and evil ministers with irregular bodies obstructing the sun's
light ; but to attempt rule without the agency of properly
inspired ministers is like a woman offering herself in wedlock
without the aid of a go-between or (cf. Russian) svakha. High-
minded statesmen will retire into privacy rather than serve
under a master who exhibits too great a conceit of himself, or
5 Cf. Dr. Johnson's " Why, sir, I have not a passion for clean linen myself."
THE EARLIEST ARTICULATE CHINESE PHILOSOPHER 2^
who appears to barter away rights and dignities in order to fill
his own private coffers. Nor should the prince lend an ear
to cliques, or intrigues will surely follow. He should not waste
too much time or money on shows and entertainments, nor
give encouragement to courtiers and flatterers — not to say
sycophants who disguise his own faults from him. Let him
follow nature and go on ever improving. An intelligent prince
cannot easily be hoodwinked, for he understands his own craft ;
contrarily to what happens in the case of a stupid prince, who
falls a victim to his ministers' craft : these folk never love so
much as they fear the intelligent ruler who defeats their schem-
ing ; it is he who holds the whip-hand and compels their service
by his own power to grant or to punish ; for he must always
have punishments in hand wherewith to terrorise as well as
rewards in hand wherewith to encourage : in other words, his
staff of servants will be actuated more by a desire to avoid evil
consequences and secure advantages to themselves than by
any affection for him ; whereas it is only a parasite ruler who
leaves the power of life and death in the hands of his own
subjects : it means his own ruin if he hand over effective power
to them.
A perspicuous ruler should welcome exact information
from all quarters, for all rulers cannot but wish to utilise the
full powers of their people ; but if his prestige be derived in
the name of as well as through those subordinate to him, then
the prince is no longer master ; he may be blocked in — so to
speak — morally, yet without any visible restraint being placed
upon him. He must not share his power ; there should be no
double practice and no dual rule ; let him set a policy and
stick to it, and then he will find the people neither angry nor
grateful, but accepting the regular order of things. If the
prince himself be good, his officers' task will be all the easier ;
over there should only be one standard for rich and
poor alike. Bad results invariably follow from lending an
ear to doubtful asseverations of fact, and from advancing
incompetent men ; the same evil results follow from acting
30 E. H. PARKER
on mere popular praise and blame. A rogue insensibly ruins
a prince who is not wary, and an unwary prince is easily
misled.
Every ruler desires wealth, distinction, and a long reign,
coupled with obedience to his behests ; he hates deceivers and
encroachers upon his prerogatives ; he dreads to lose his realm
and to witness the extinction of his ancestral shrines. Of
course every loyal minister wishes to second his master in all
this, but finds himself continually hampered by rogues, to whose
crooked advice an incompetent ruler too often lends a ready
ear : hence cabals, desertion of the prince, and currying of these
rogues' favour ; hence, also, as we have said, ten visits to a
rogues' council for every one visit to the prince's court. Under
a good prince there are sound appointments to office, whilst
under a bad prince there is a general grab for good things. All
excellent soldiers and statesmen are in vain if the prince him-
self be a bad one. Under a good prince ministers forget their
own personal interests and keep their proper places in their
anxiety to serve, whilst under a weak prince there is a general
competition for rival advantages. Appointments should be
for the good of the country, and not for that of individuals,
emoluments being graded accordingly ; whereas under an in-
competent prince all is jobbery for friends. A good prince
applies his own tests in military as in civil cases, whereas a bad
prince appoints on mere recommendation without making any
tests at all. Good service is what really matters, both to the
security of the ruler and the prosperity of his people — that is
to say, in civil matters, the protection of wealth, the encourage-
ment of effort, the raising of revenue, the repairing of the
prince's blunders, the offering of prudent advice, and the getting
rid of concealment. Rewards should be automatical and not
a matter of caprice, life and death resting on the prince's power,
and the distinction always being clearly marked between that
and the subjects' power.
The circumstances under which the above principles were
THE EARLIEST ARTICULATE CHINESE PHILOSOPHER 31
reiterated over a period of forty years were these. China 6
then still consisted of the Yellow River valley, the river itself
then, as now, practically unnavigable and subject to disastrous
floods. Almost nothing is known of the earlier dynasties,
though there is no reason to suppose that social life and moral
principles differed much from those developed and placed on
permanent record by the new dynasty of 1122 B.C. ; this adopted
a new or modified policy of enfeoffing family relatives and
military supporters in semi-independent principalities, all of
which touched the Yellow River at some point, and around
these principalities were grouped the petty republics which had
in remoter times done duty and service, according to custom
and tradition, to the central King or Emperor. During four
hundred years (1100-700) of rule, inter-state commerce, popula-
tion, colonisation, means of written communication, and pro-
gress generally had made remarkable advance ; of details we
know little, but the chief feature was that the Kings had grown
inefficient, whilst their score or more of chief lieges had corre-
spondingly developed practical independence. Notwith-
standing, they were all pretty firm and loyal upon one point,
and that was in recognising the Kings as spiritual superiors,
holding the key to ritual, possessing the ancient power to recog-
nise successions, confirm titles, and so on. Kwan-tsz, whose
wits had already been sharpened by engaging in inter-state
trade, was recommended by one of his old trade partners (then
political adviser to the wealthiest of the competing states) for
the post for which he himself felt insufficiently competent.
Happily for his own interests, the reigning Marquess accepted
this advice, and the new mentor, once installed, set himself to
work to develop an entirely new idea. This idea was to develop
military and economical power persistently on such lines as to
force the rival great powers to moderate their separatist ambi-
tions and continue the performance of their ancient duties
6 No territorial-ethnological name ever existed ; the peoples forming articu-
late China, inarticulate China, and the cognate tribes more hostile than even
inarticulate, all put together formed " the world " ; just as, in a sense, the
Egyptian " Empire " and the various editions of the Mesopotamian "Empire "
each formed a " world " for the populations.
32 E. H. PARKER
towards the King. His policy was one of benevolent force or
pa — a word meaning " dominancy " — and he was quite success-
ful in creating for his own master this dominant position, which
definitely rescued China from Tartar invasion in the north and
from the rival Imperial schemes of the less orthodox half -Chinese
colonies in the south. How this originally excellent idea of
altruistic pa or " Protector to the King " developed in later
ages into a contest for a new kind of dynastic pa or seizure of
universal Empire forms no part of our present scheme, which
is simply to show how definite political philosophy began in
China ; how Kwan-tsz's teachings unwittingly led to the
abolition of the old feudal Kings and the creation of a universal
pa or Imperial Centralised State ; and how Laocius and Con-
fucius extracted from the same sources as those open to Kwan-
tsz two rival philosophies 7 : both of the first-named vague
preachers have had quite a continuous influence upon Chinese
thought, whilst the more intelligible and practical Kwan-tsz has
been ignored. I now proceed to give an account of tao or " the
way " of nature, which is stated by all three philosophers to
be the basis of their teaching, but the spirit of which they all
three in effect equally admit was traditionally handed down
from the mysterious old " ancient kings " or spiritual Emperors,
of whom, however, we really know nothing definite.
In his first chapter Kwan-tsz descants upon the tao to be
observed in relation to homestead, village, state, or empire, using
much the same language as that employed one hundred and
fifty years later by Laocius : this tao must be permanent and
not fitful, and must work by natural (Men, or Heaven's) laws :
it is as necessary for rulers as for ruled, for we cannot all be dis-
tinguished men, and hence there is a tao (natural sense or reason)
in the mere fact of any personal differences in capacity and
status existing. It is also consistent with tao that there should
be wealth, for the accumulation of wealth connotes the reduced
necessity of making further demands upon the people. In his
7 See " Parting of the Ways " in The Manchester University Review for
July, 1906.
THE EARLIEST ARTICULATE CHINESE PHILOSOPHER 33
second chapter Kwan-tsz discusses the unchangeable and eternal
nature of that tao which has from the beginning formed the
guiding principle of rule : in this connection it is interesting
to note what Laocius says after a century or more of further ex-
perience— namely, that it is only when the " great tao " becomes
effete that such artificial ideas as charity, justice, knowledge
and cleverness — all denoting inequality, or a departure from
nature — begin to take possession of men's minds. The fourth
chapter has whole sentences that might have been copied from
Laocius' book, but which, on the contrary, must have tended to
inspire the latter to write that book : for instance, the " holy
man," or natural-born ruler of men, armed with his full quality
and experience, always maintains tao in his general behaviour ;
tao is all-pervading, all-embracing, all-affecting ; tao-teh is, or
are, invariable and everlasting ; tao is what the sun is in heaven
and what the heart is in man — i.e. the source of life and mental
activity. Legality (fahs) derives from principle (li), and
principle, from order (chi) ; principle plus order are, in fact,
tao ; wherever the tao of heaven exists, it must prevail over a
condition of things where there is no such tao of heaven. The
r fifth chapter explains specifically how this tao effect operated
in noo B.C., when the founder of the new dynasty (to which
China has owed and still owes her articulate refinement and
moral strength) prevailed over the old dynasty (as to which we
have practically no information whatever beyond the fact that
the recently exhumed bone inscriptions absolutely prove the
truth of its existence as recorded in the most ancient Chinese
history) : the above-mentioned founder prevailed because, as
King, he ruled by tao ; but then (adds Kwan-tsz), the word tao,
implying " the right way," can also be used in the crude or
original sense of " the way," as, for instance, the way not to
govern.
If the prince fail in his tao, then the great ministers tend to
excessive authority. Heaven's tao has its phases, for when it has
8 It is necessary that I should give the original Chinese words for the benefit
of those who know Chinese and naturally wish to see the exact point in each
case.
C
34 E. H. PARKER
reached its acme it returns, and at the full it begins to weaken ;
like the movements of the sun and the moon respectively, so
the governing system or maintaining of order for the Empire.
The whole subject is thoroughly worked out in this chapter,
which may indeed, as above suggested, be the basis, or another
part of the basis, upon which Laocius' speculations are founded.
The sixth chapter recurs to the subject from other points of
view ; thus the superior or cultured man (kiln-tsz) may be said
to feed or subsist on tao just as the clown (siao-jeri) feeds or
subsists on his labour. A state can no more dispense with tao
than individuals can dispense with desires or objects in life;
the great thing is to lead the people along the tao when you have
it yourself, and to utilise men of first-class capacity (hieri) when
you have secured them ; thus it is impossible for any state to
get along satisfactorily without tao. The following clear de-
finitions are specially interesting as having been made before
the new title of hwang-ti or " August Emperor " was sub-
stituted towards the close of the third century B.C. for the simple
wang or " King," both having inherent in them the supreme
title of " Son of Heaven/' Kwan-tsz says : " The one who
discerns Unity is hwang, and he who can detect tao is Ti ; he
who is well acquainted with teh (i.e. the results of tao) is the
King (wang), and the military strategist is the Protector (pa) ;
tao and teh, being immeasurable, are not altogether inconsistent
with a vigorous military policy ; tao is to harmonise (ho) and
teh is to unite (hoh) the people." All this strongly savours of
Laocius and the great military 9 writers, Sun-tsz (sixth century
B.C.) and Fan Li (fifth century B.C.). However, in the next or
seventh chapter Kwan-tsz advises the Duke 10 that the view of
9 In The Asiatic Review for July last I have contributed a paper exclusively
dealing with the quasi-Prussian military Kultur of Kwan-tsz, and I have alluded
to Dr. Lionel Giles' translation of the book of Sun-tsz, with its Preface by Earl
Roberts. The agricultural, economical, spiritual, and other of Kwan-tsz's
philosophies will be dealt with separately on some future occasion.
10 All vassal states were ruled by what, for convenience sake, we translate
as dukes, marquesses, earls (counts), viscounts, or barons, owing fealty to the
wang or king ; but whatever their status when living, they were all posthum-
ously " dukes " by courtesy — i.e. if they were civilised enough to fall under
the dynastic posthumous law.
THE EARLIEST ARTICULATE CHINESE PHILOSOPHER 35
tao taken by the wise kings of old did not contemplate military
rivalry, and in the eighth chapter he explains that the really
good ruler develops tao in his own person (see back). The tenth
chapter continues the lesson or sermon on tao and teh, and lays
down the principle that the fewer the words used the better ; just
conduct results in the people ceasing to stand in bewilderment
as to the real meaning of tao, which is only another way of
saying that they are " roaded " or " guided along the road '*
by their superiors ; hence tao and teh derive from the prince
whose ministers execute his pleasure, and the tao is thus com-
pleted. A prince with tao abides by the Law, whilst a prince
without tao evades the Law. Tao gives birth or life to man, and
is thus born in man, not placed in him afterwards ; the sacred
kings and perspicuous princes of old were men expert in under-
standing tao, which is formless, and not based on anything (hu
sheh, " emptily set-up ") : tao on a great and kingly scale, and
also on a lesser or princely scale, signifies in reference to these
rulers that they possess the respective means to rule each one
iis particular state. The eleventh chapter returns to the
ubject, showing how tao-teh are fixed by those above in such
wise that the people below are unconsciously regenerated;
)ut a perspicuous ruler's tao always keeps within the prescrip-
ion (fah) and does not swerve (a) n from it ; and it is here once
more asserted, as in the sixth chapter, that tao nourishes the
cultured individual in the same sense that his bodily labour
nourishes the common man. Kwan-tsz at this point mentions
a lesson he learnt from an individual who cannot be identified,
but who was apparently the ruler or the minister of one of
their minuscule subordinate fiefs visited during the Duke's
career of pa or dictatorial conquest : this lesson was to the effect
that too-less princes indulged in luxury whilst ignoring really
*ood men, thus failing themselves to adhere to the natural law
''icn-tao), spending their time in gaming, dalliance, hunting,
ind careering about. He goes on himself to say that the
ninister without tao is office-seeking and obsequious, whilst
popular proverb runs to-day : Lao Tien puh a, " Good old Heaven
shows no favour or swerve."
36 E. H. PARKER
exposing his prince to the brunt of any blame that may be
attachable to the course of affairs. Cultured tao is that of the
ancient kings, who were careful in their observance of what
was due to the spirits of the hills and rivers, to the ancestral
shrines, and to the local deities or gods of the soil (she-tsih).
The next chapter suggests other borrowings by the later Laocius,
when it is shown how the world of to-day is but the same world,
though degenerate, as that of ancient democratic times, when
no government was required, and when men lived in happy
indifference to " rights " and " property " 12 ; the moral of it,
however, is that the tao of heaven and earth, or of nature, must
be followed as conditions and circumstances demand.
The thirteenth chapter shows metaphorically how the Heart,
or prince, and the Nine Orifices, or ministers, are inevitably
correlated in their tao, which must therefore never fail at the
calm and restful top in such wise as to cause injury to the
changeful subordination below ; for tao is motionless and un-
emotional, whilst the regeneration and training of all human
beings (wan-wuh) is teh : human relations, as, for instance, those
between prince and subject or father and son, fall under the
head of right or justice (i), whilst distinctions of class come
within what is termed rite or religious observance (Li). These
definitions of Kwan-tsz are important, for one hundred and fifty
years later, as we have seen in discussing chapter ii., Laocius
denounced these two artificialities of Confucius' modern refine-
ment. Kwan-tsz goes on to say that a wise man does not either
check natural inclinations or deny people innocent and useful
disliking privileges ; it is a mistake to be capricious and change-
able in such matters, for a prince should be calm and ready to
adapt himself to circumstances. The tao of the supremely
cultured man (sheng-jen) is like life, in the sense that it is invisible
as it comes and goes ; and both he and the man enjoying the
next highest degree of culture (kiln-tsz) know how to utilise
12 A state of affairs vividly recalling Don Quixote's siglos dichosos as sketched
by him for the benefit of the gaping goat-herds over a dessert of free acorns—
but after first devouring their bread and cheese with good appetite.
THE EARLIEST ARTICULATE CHINESE PHILOSOPHER 37
things and circumstances rather than become a creature of them.
Set in motion what is right, quietly, in a timely way, and ad-
ministratively ; if it be done harmoniously, it will endure :
do not seek any advantage if not conformable, as above in-
dicated, with your tao ; in the first place follow Heaven, then
follow Man, and ask yourself the reasons for and the nature of
what you do. Nature produces everything in its due time, and
it cannot be distorted ; hence the wise man quietly awaits
natural results. Tao is never in excess for the purposes of one
t^le unit, and never falls short for the purposes of all units :
no oracle is ever required to inform you what is and what is not
rontrary to tao. Tao is as big as Heaven and as broad as
Earth, as heavy as a stone and as light as a feather.
The fourteenth chapter develops the qualities-of-water
theory, the lowliness of its level being " the house of tao and
the instrument of rulers " — a theory of some of the Greek
philosophers. Rulers' commands must be governed by Heaven's
tao, or by the circumstance and season ; only the man of the
highest culture (sheng-jen) understands the tao of the four seasons,
the teh of the stars, the year, the bearing of the planets (ch'en),
and the moon. Tao begets Heaven and Earth, and teh begets
the sage (hien-jen) ; and it must be remembered that the
ancient dynasties found it necessary to shift their spring-time,
though tao itself is traced as far back as Hwang-ti (2697-2597
B.C.), whom later generations follow, for nature never runs
contrary to season. Tao may be defined as natural harmony,
and covers amongst other things the abstention from destroy-
ing immature existence, whether it be of living or of vegetating
; iv.-itures ; in the same way it demands that punishments must
fit the crime, be definite, and not liable to capricious change.
With a ruler who can use tao there is no worry, and things
automatically go right.
The fifteenth chapter once more defines tao as natural
harmony ; with a ruler capable of utilising it, effort and anxiety
are unnecessary, as things always right themselves in the end.
Law or legal administration (fah) is tao in its supreme (chi)
38 E. H. PARKER
sense. Ever since the world began all heavenly bodies have
been unfailing in their movements, and thus a State of law and
order means one where the ruler's tao is conspicuously clear.
The sixteenth chapter discusses the unspeakability of tao quite
in the style of Laocius' book, of the well-known but apocryphal
Taoist Yin-fu " classic," and even of Mencius (fourth century
B.C.), when he discusses the " absence of motion" (pu-tung):
this tao is invisible, born within us, inaudible, ineffable ; is
used in the heart or mind when its effects are visible ; it is root-
less, stalkless, leafless, and flowerless ; yet things are born of
or fructified by it. Kwan-tsz reproves the Duke for trying to
get the better of (sheng) or to overpower his people instead of
endeavouring to induce or regenerate (hwa) them — the former a
process which, he says, is certainly not the great tao of Empire,
nor in accordance with a true princely ruler's motto.
It must and cannot but be noticed that there are numerous
repetitions and variations of language in this philosophical
treatise of Kwan-tsz : thus the seventeenth chapter gives us
another version of the necessity for following " Heaven's time,"
and noting the duties appertaining to each season ; the neces-
sity for giving to young life full time to mature, and so on ; in
fact, the " game laws " clearly had a local inception in Kwan-
tsz's mind, but always in the interests of natural life, and never
in the interests of class privilege. Again, the consistency of
tao with wealth discussed in the first chapter is repeated in
the eighteenth, where the Duke desires to know if it is con-
sistent with tao for him to keep what he possesses. ' Yes,"
replies Kwan-tsz, "by all means take and keep what comes
spontaneously or easily without incitement ; but do not initiate
the movement, and do not try to keep the acquisition of things
on the move." The word Ju, usually translated " Confucian-
ist," though apparently not used at all by Kwan-tsz himself,
appears from other authors to have meant, in his time, " the
educated class," or, as one native commentator has it, " those
who can mentally penetrate the principles of Heaven and Earth"
— as portrayed by Kwan-tsz himself in the nineteenth chapter.
THE EARLIEST ARTICULATE CHINESE PHILOSOPHER 39
The twentieth chapter goes on to show how Heaven, Earth,
and the seasons never change their tao ; just as the archer has a
" rnust-hit-the- target " tao so the ruler has a " must-maintain-
public-order " tao : repeating the language of the fifth chapter,
the philosopher goes on to explain that it was precisely the
possession of tao in his mind and action that enabled the
founder (1120 B.C.) of the then (700 B.C.) comparatively new
rtyal dynasty to overthrow its corrupt antecessor.13 The mean
mm tries to crook or bend the true tao in order to conciliate
hk ruler, basely tendering surreptitious counsel with a view to
at -.lining mean ends. Still, as a matter of fact, a ruler's subjects
like to see him rich and distinguished, and, this being so, he
shmld be careful always to practise tao-teh, and thus avoid
disgusting his people, for Heaven and Earth are impartial to
great and small in conferring their blessings. Tao is meat,
rdment, and shelter ; it regenerates everything ; therefore the
motto is " adhere to tao"
The last four chapters throw little new light upon the general
conception of tao beyond giving us repetitions of views taken
sometimes from other angles of vision : thus, the ruler of men,
the lord of men, the king, the prince, are all alternately spoken
of in such a way that it is evident the same divinity doth, in
theory, hedge them all, and that tao doth, in theory at least,
shape their ends, rough-hew them how they will ; the prince
should therefore follow nature ; he stands for the fixity of
heaven and earth, with or in relation to the four seasons ; but
if the prince be so unwise as to play subject-too, then the
ministers or subjects will inevitably try to play prince's-tao :
therefore each to his proper place or sphere. Then there is a
tao as applied to regular revenue, filial duty, charitable institu-
tions, and other special matters ; " this perpetually-existing or
universal tao (t'ien-hia-chi-tao) may be termed standard tao
(chun-tao)" The mythical founder of Chinese civilisation
the dynasty of which since 1898 we have definite first-hand docu-
mentary traces in the recently discovered bone and tortoise-shell inscriptions
referred to on pp. 50, 60 of the Journal of the Manchester Egyptian and Oriental
Society for 1015-1916.
40 E. H. PARKER
(2697-2597 B.C.) is said to have asked an adviser named Peh-kao
if it were tao to mould the Empire (t'ien-hia) into one family,
to which query an equivocal answer was given ; unfortunately
the Taoist eccentric Chwang-tsz (fourth century B.C.) seems to
be the only authority to mention this cautious adviser, and even
then only in connection with the almost equally mythical
Emperor Yao (2356-2256) B.C. : moreover, the idea of unifying
the " Empire " savours of Kwan-tsz's own Protector times,
and it is plain in any case from the place-names enumeratel,
as the Duke boasted of having carried his arms over the " whole
Empire," that he was never for many successive days together
one hundred miles from some part of the Yellow River, much of
the left bank, and even parts of the right, being in Tartar occupa-
tion, notwithstanding that some of those Tartars may have ac-
cepted Chinese rank. When popular rumour, towards the end
of the Duke's illustrious career, announced that a dragon had
appeared, Kwan-tsz said : " By all means let us bruit the miracb
abroad, for it is only the foolish who believe in and are swayed by
supernatural beings (kwei-shen), whilst the knowing ones utilise
them for their own prestige, and in order to set going the tao of
the Empire " (the t'ien-hia-chi-tao, or universal tao just men-
tioned). It must be repeated here that, even in Confucius'
time — i.e. from one hundred and fifty to two hundred years
later than Kwan-tsz — there was yet no connected literature,
no regular style, no logical method of expression, no syntax,
prosody, or etymology : the intricate thoughts were there
suggestively, and the historical facts subsequent to 841 B.C.
are, in the main, true beyond all doubt ; but the working or
reproducing brain machinery was still inexpressive : man's
brain seems, from recent anthropological discoveries, to have
been as well developed and often as intelligent in remote pre-
historic times as it is now, so far as intelligible speaking and
efficient acting go ; but the means of perpetuating and record-
ing and reproducing thought were yet imperfect in most parts
of the world as well as in China, and it was for later genera-
tions (500 B.C. to 200 B.C.), acquainted both traditionally, prac-
tically and by blood-inheritance with the names of persons
THE EARLIEST ARTICULATE CHINESE PHILOSOPHER 41
(including descendants) and places (including tombs) to turn
such of the short, jerky records and memoranda (1500 B.C. to
500 B.C.) as had survived war and revolution into readable
literature : subject to these qualifications, therefore, we may
give the book Kwan-tsz a true bill, and credit China of the
seventh century B.C. with his intellectual power and admini-
strative capacity to apply that power.
THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE OLD
TESTAMENT
By W. H. BENNETT.
FOR popular sentiment the arrangement of the A.V. and R.V.
possesses a sacred authority similar to that of the most inspired
portions of the Bible. For many, a Bible with the books
arranged differently would hardly be a Bible. An enthusiast
has published an edition with the New Testament placed first,
and given it the title of " The Christian Bible." But we imagine
that the new order would jar upon many, and they would feel
it to be a most unchristian Bible ; any more drastic alteration
would seem yet more objectionable.
Nevertheless that arrangement has little authority beyond
that of prescription, association, and a very partial intrinsic
fitness — especially as regards the Old Testament, with which
we are particularly concerned. It is needless to say that there
was no divine revelation to the effect that the books were to
be arranged in the order in which they are now printed ; that
order is not that followed by the Palestinian Jews, from whom
the Church received the Old Testament in Hebrew ; it is, there-
fore, not the order known to Christ ; if indeed He ever had
before Him a complete collection of the books of the Old
Testament, or a list of them.
Indeed, there is no agreement as to order either amongst
the ancient Jewish authorities or amongst the ancient Greek
authorities, or amongst the ancient Latin authorities ; the
reader may see in Swete's Introduction to the Old Testament
in Greek, pp. 200 fL, the numerous varieties of order found in
the various MSS. and lists. Even in individual books, the order
of the material sometimes varies — e.g. the Oracles on the Nations
43
44 W. H. BENNETT
in Jeremiah are placed almost at the end of the Hebrew MSS.,
but about the middle in the Septuagint.
The arrangement in E.V. is derived from the Vulgate,
which probably followed certain Greek MSS. and lists, at any
rate partly. This arrangement, therefore, is only so far authori-
tative that it has been adopted in the Western Church, both
Romanist and Protestant, since the fifth century A.D. ; it is
not the most ancient arrangement ; it is not the official Jewish
arrangement ; it has never been generally adopted by the
Christian Church. It has, indeed, certain intrinsic merits.
It is divided into three natural groups : (i) Narratives ;
(2) Poetical, Didactic and Philosophical Books ; (3) Prophets.
The principle is adhered to with a fair approach to consistency.
It is true that the books of the groups (i) and (3) include much
legal, didactic and poetical material, but this could hardly be
avoided. Again, the books of Lamentations, Daniel and Jonah
have no right to a place in a collection of prophecies ; Lamenta-
tions is as much a collection of poems as Psalms ; Jonah is a
symbolic narrative of the same type as Esther, and Daniel is an
apocalypse. Within the first group, that of Narratives, the
books are arranged in the chronological order of the events
which they describe. Chronicles, which is a later edition of
previous books, chiefly of Kings, is rightly placed after the latter
book. In group (2) the books stand in the chronological order
of the persons with whose names they are chiefly associated-
Job, David, Solomon. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles stand
in the order of their length. In the Prophetical Group we have
first the longer books in the chronological order of the prophets
after whom they are named ; then follow the twelve, in an order
which is not really chronological, but was probably supposed to
be so by the editors who compiled the collection of the twelve.
In this case the order is misleading and indefensible.
The Jews have an official and authoritative division of the
Old Testament into three parts : (i) Pentateuch, (2) Prophets
— Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings and our prophetical books,
with the exception of Lamentations and Daniel ; (3) Writings,
THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 45
the rest of the books. This order is that of the reception of
each collection into the Canon, and therefore has a historical
value. The order of the books in (i) and (2) agrees with that
of E. V. The order in (3) is Psalms, Proverbs, Job, the Five Rolls,
regarded as a small collection, containing Canticles, Ruth,
Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, then Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah,
Chronicles. The order in the last group also largely reflects
the history of the formation of the collection. For instance,
Chronicles is placed at the end, after Nehemiah, although the
events narrated in Chronicles precede those in the other book.
This is probably because at first it was intended to include
Nehemiah and not Chronicles, and the latter book was only
admitted later. Thus the arrangement of the Jewish Old Testa-
ment has a historical value, and the record of it should be
carefully preserved, as of course it will be. It is in some re-
spects an improvement on that of E.V., in that Lamentations
is not made an appendix to Jeremiah, and Daniel is not in-
cluded in the Prophets ; but on the whole it is not much more
satisfactory.1
We need not discuss the other varieties of arrangement found
in ancient authorities ; they do not differ materially in value
from those of E.V. and the current Jewish Bibles.
There are various possibilities as to the rearrangement of
the contents of the Old Testament. A stricter division accord-
ing to subject matter might be attempted ; the legal portions
might be made into a separate section ; the narratives in the
Prophetical Books might be separated from their present con-
text and appended to the Narrative Books Certain poems
might be taken out of the Narrative Books and appended to
the Psalter, etc., etc. But for the most part, such changes
would not be advantageous. There are, however, a few changes
1 Our readers may be interested to know that the Jewish arrangement of
the Old Testament can now be studied in a new English translation, The Holy
Scriptures, made by orthodox Jewish scholars, and published by the Jewish
Publication Society of America, whose London agents are Routledge & Sons,
53. net.
46 W. H. BENNETT
of this kind which ought to be made ; Lamentations should be
removed from the Prophets and placed with the Poetical Books ;
similarly Daniel should be placed in a class by itself as an
Apocalypse, and Jonah should be transferred to the Narrative
Books. These changes would not be difficult and should be
made. Another change of this nature would be more difficult,
and would arouse opposition. A new group should be formed to
include " Symbolic Narratives " — i.e. narratives which have a
moral and religious value, like our Lord's Parables, but are not
to be regarded as history, though they may sometimes be based
on historical facts. There would be difference of opinion as to
which narratives should be included in this group, but most
modern scholars would agree upon the narratives (not neces-
sarily the genealogies) in Gen. i.-xi., Ruth, Esther, and Jonah.
Most interest, however, is taken in the suggestion that the
contents of the Old Testament should be arranged in a chrono-
logical order corresponding to the times at which each section
was composed. This idea has been very much in the air lately ;
various proposals have been made in different quarters, and a
certain amount of preliminary work has been done. To some
extent, at any rate, an Old Testament so arranged is a de-
sideratum, and it is worth while to spend a little time in dis-
cussing the idea. Of course information as to the dates which
modern criticism assigns to the various sections is easily access-
ible ; there is a wealth of cheap, popular literature on the
subject ; but such information is not so convenient or attractive
as actually setting forth the material in chronological order.
Again, certain books have been rearranged — e.g. Isaiah by
Cheyne in the Polychrome Bible ; the Hexateuch by Addis in
his Documents of the Hexateuch? but they do not cover the whole
Old Testament, and do not serve the same purpose as a single
rearranged volume. Moreover, a collection of such books
would be expensive, and what is most urgently needed is some-
thing which will make the matter plain to the ordinary Bible
reader at a moderate price. Then, again, there are numerous
works which print the material in its traditional arrangement,
2 I.e. Pentateuch plus Joshua.
THE ARRANGEMENT OP THE OLD TESTAMENT 47
and indicate the sources by differences of type, initials, etc.
This, too, however, is not a simple or direct way of enabling the
reader to realise the relative antiquity of the various sections.
Thus the chronological rearrangement seems to remain a felt
want.
There are, however, numerous difficulties. To begin with,
it is not a question merely of whole books or of large sections
of books, like i Isaiah and 2 Isaiah', we have to consider an
immense number of portions, small and great, from a single
word, sentence or paragraph, up to a complete book ; and
each of these is a separate problem. Often no exact solution
of the problem is possible with our present information. Not-
ably it is often impossible to determine the exact date of a short
paragraph, say a psalm, which does not refer to any known
person or historical event, but is of a general character. We
may be able to say, with a fair amount of confidence, that it
belongs to a given century or series of centuries, but we cannot
be more precise. It follows that often we cannot arrange a
number of such portions in chronological order. If, for instance,
all that we can determine about the dates of twenty or thirty
psalms is that they were composed between 500 and 200 B.C.,
we cannot arrange these psalms according to the times at which
they were composed. Some, perhaps, would profess to be able
to do so, but, unfortunately, confidence in undertaking such a
task is not always due to the possession of sound scholarly gifts ;
it may arise from an undue conceit as to one's own judgment ;
a power of drawing wide and assured conclusions from scanty
and ambiguous data and the gift of ignoring inconvenient
facts, when the evidence is conflicting.
At any rate there is a large measure of uncertainty, which
makes it impossible to apply the principle of chronological
order consistently and exhaustively. In some cases — e.g.
psalms — a number of sections might be grouped, with the in-
timation that they belonged to a given period, but that their
relative order was unknown ; in such cases it might be well to
48 W. H. BENNETT
follow the order of the E.V., which, of course, is that of the
Hebrew MSS. It might also be well to do the same in the case
of longer sections or complete books, whose relative order is
uncertain. Thus both Joel and Jonah are post-exilic, but it
is not certain which is the earlier ; they may very well be
allowed to remain in the order — Joel . . . Jonah — in which they
stand in E.V. But of course, if the editor of such a work as
we are considering came to some definite conclusion on the
matter, he would place the books accordingly. The use of this
method would not always mean that sections of uncertain date
would be left where they now stand ; in the case of the Pro-
phetical Books it would be desirable to remove them from the
books in which they belong at present and arrange them in
groups according to the periods to which they were assigned.
A different problem is presented by the Narrative Books,
Pentateuch, etc., which have been compiled by interweaving
sections, paragraphs, and sentences from sources ; here we are
often uncertain as to the source, and, therefore, as to the
date. The two oldest Pentateuchal sources, J. and E., are
frequently so closely and skilfully interwoven that there is
nothing like general agreement as to which bit is J. and which
is E. ; we cannot determine the relative antiquity of the differ-
ent verses ; verse i may be J., and verse 2, E., and then verse
i will be the earlier, or vice versa ; but no good end would be
served by attempting to indicate these facts by arrangement
of the material ; the scheme of chronological order has to be
abandoned, and the reader can only be told that the section is
compiled from two sources of different dates, but that it cannot
be fully or certainly determined which portion belongs to which.
The points raised are only illustrations of the problems set by
our uncertainty ; the reader will, perhaps, be struck by the
difficulties involved rather than by the feasibility or satisfactory
character of the expedients by which they are or may be evaded.
A few experiments in the work of rearrangement would bring
home to him still more forcibly the extent and complicated
nature of these difficulties.
THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 49
We have already referred to the fact that some of the Old
Testament books are compiled by interweaving portions from
various sources ; this interweaving is sometimes exceedingly
minute, elaborate and complicated ; these phenomena give
rise to yet another set of difficulties. Supposing we knew for
certain the exact date of every word, it would be easy to arrange
everything in chronological order, and the result would be in-
teresting and valuable for the scholar. But as things are, the
information we possess is accessible in other ways, and the
results of an attempt to place every portion, however small,
in its exact chronological place might hardly be worth while.
The general reader, especially, would not find such a work either
attractive or illuminating. It would be largely " a thing of
shreds and patches " ; we might have one after another— a
chapter from the book of Isaiah ; an editorial insertion of two
or three words from Genesis ; a series of similar scraps ; a narra-
tive from Ezra ; a few chapters from Zechariak, etc., etc.
Narratives, poems, prophecies, proverbs, laws, editorial notes,
would be hopelessly jumbled together. We should have a
confused blending of heterogeneous material, far worse even
than anything in our present Old Testament. It is obvious,
therefore, that a rearranged Bible, to be of any practical use,
would have to be a compromise between arrangement according
to chronology, subject matter, and tradition.
For instance, something like the following would be fairly
possible.3
A. NARRATIVES AND LAWS
(i) The combined JE Document and the similar pre-
Deuteronomic material in Judges, Samuel, and Kings, as edited
by the Deuteronomic School — i.e. the Deuteronomic edition of
the History and the pre-Deuteronomic Laws ; together with all
later editorial notes, etc., referring to this material.
3 A scheme of rearrangement was published in the Venturer some time ago,
which had some points in common with this, but as I have not now got it
before me I cannot say how far it was similar or how far it was different.
The present writer had been considering the matter long before he saw the
Venturer scheme.
D
50 W. H. BENNETT
Obviously notes on a passage have no meaning apart from it
and must either be omitted or printed with it. The fact that
they were notes and not part of the original text might be shown
by printing them either in different type or as footnotes.
(2) The Deuteronomic Law and Exhortations, treated as
in (i).
(3) The Priestly Code, including later additions and notes,
cf. above.
(4) Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah.
(5) Symbolic Narratives : Ruth, Jonah, Esther.
B. THE PROPHETICAL BOOKS (in chronological order)
Lamentations, Jonah and Daniel would not be included in
this group. Isaiah i.-xxxix. ; Is. xl.-lv. ; Is. Ivi.-lxvi. ; Zech.
i.-viii. ; Zech. ix.-xiv. would be treated as separate books.
Notes and minor dependent additions by later hands would be
dealt with as in A (i). Independent poems, prophecies, etc.,
might either be placed in appendices at the end of each book
or together at the end of the group, in either case arranged as
far as possible in chronological order, or in groups according
to periods.
C. POETICAL BOOKS
Lamentations, Canticles, Psalms.
Any attempt to arrange the psalms in chronological order
presents peculiar difficulties. An editor who had sufficient
confidence in his own judgment in the matter would doubtless
group the psalms as pre-Exilic, Exilic, Persian Period, Early
Greek Period, Maccabean. But it is doubtful whether our
knowledge is such as to make it worth while to disturb
the present arrangement, which affords many indications of
the history of the compilation of the Psalter, and preserves the
original grouping of many of the psalms. Where a date could
be given with any strong probability, it might be appended to
a psalm. Cf. also the next group.
THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 51
D. THE WISDOM LITERATURE
Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes.
The Elihu Speeches would be placed as an appendix to Job ;
notes, etc., would be dealt with as in (i). Possibly the Wisdom
Psalms might be transferred from the Psalter to this group.
E. APOCALYPSE
Daniel.
There are, of course, alternative schemes, each of which
would have advantages peculiar to itself, and each of which
might appeal to a special class of readers.
There should be suitable divisions and headings, and brief
introductions. Moreover, to use a technical printing term,
there should be good " display " — i.e. the matter should be
spaced so that the divisions and the relations of the sections
would be at once obvious.
All this would cost money, especially with paper and print-
ing at their present prices. It is doubtful whether at any time
a rearranged Old Testament of a really satisfactory character,
and at the same time attractive in form, would be a success
as a commercial venture. Is there any prospect of obtaining
adequate subsidies for such a work ?
THE GIVER OF LIFE1
By G. ELLIOT SMITH.
ONE of the most surprising facts revealed by the study of the
customs and beliefs of peoples who have been shielded from
close contact with civilisation is their extraordinary lack of
inventiveness. Most of them remain in a stagnant condition
and reveal no evidence of what civilised people call " progress "
either in the material or the intellectual sphere.
The realisation of this state of affairs makes one wonder what
the original motive may have been that drove mankind to
renounce the simple life and engage in all the unnatural toil
and strife involved in his efforts to attain the artificial aim
which the individual man regards as his personal advancement
and the community calls the progress of civilisation.2
Before the invention of houses, the use of metals, the build-
ing of ships, the beginning of agriculture, the pursuit of scientific
knowledge or the shaping of beliefs, some bright genius did not
simply say to himself : "I must build a house " (to take one
example of the things I have mentioned) and forthwith set to
work to cut down trees and shape them into beams, to mould
bricks and make walls, and to quarry rock and build up a
dwelling or a temple.
Each of these things, the mere idea of a house, the use of
1 This is a summary of part of the argument developed in " The Birth of
Aphrodite," the third chapter of The Evolution of the Dragon (Manchester
University Press, 1918), where bibliographical references are given.
2 It is important to recognise at the outset that such " progress " does not
necessarily bring an increase in happiness or contentment, nor does it mean a
moral uplifting. Methods of cruelty and injustice, greed and warfare, are as
much products of civilisation as the comforts of a modern house or the con-
venience of a railway train. Primitive man was a well-behaved and peaceful
creature, free from most of the vices which the modern journalist in his
blindness calls " savagery.''
53
54 G. ELLIOT SMITH
wood, the invention of bricks and the value of stone, had a
long history behind it. The series of discoveries emerged more
or less accidentally out of the empirical knowledge acquired
by men who were busy following aims that had little to do with
house-building. Without any knowledge or conception of a
house man could not simply say to himself : " Let me build
a house " ; he had to invent the house before he could
contemplate the possibility of any such procedure.
So also in the discovery of the use of metals. Copper, the
first metal used for any really practical purpose, appealed first
to men as a substance like gold, which he was using for the
manufacture of amulets. But why did he attach any special
value to gold ? Why has this yellow and relatively valueless
metal come to possess so arbitrary and inflated an importance
that for fifty centuries the pursuit of it has been the obtrusive
aim of mankind, the lure which has been the primary factor in
the diffusion of civilisation and the chief object of greed which
has been the parent of most of the world's strife and unhappi-
ness ? Man did not simply say to himself : " Here is valuable
gold, let me collect it and get rich." He had first of all to create
its artificial value before the relatively useless stuff was worth
picking up. We have to discover the motive for this arbitrary
enrichment of the yellow metal.
So also, if one by one we study each of the fundamental
elements of our civilisation, we shall discover that however
obvious and simple most of them appear to us, they do not
appear in this light to the untutored " savage." Each of them
has been the result of an invention or discovery which was made
originally only after a long history and the accumulation of a
complex mass of empirical knowledge, out of the matrix of which
in due time the ideas were born that familiarity had brought
into contempt with us, who label them obvious.
If we take up for consideration these fundamental ideas and
practices of civilisation, and inquire into the history of each
THE GIVER OF LIFE 55
of them in turn, the astounding fact emerges quite definitely —
and with amazing consistency and uniformity — that the ultimate
motive which impelled mankind to depart from the simple life
of his original ancestors, and embark upon the hazardous
regimen of toil and strife which we call progress and civilisation,
was the search for an " elixir of life."
If we study the literature of any of the ancient civilisations
or of any religion, we will find that the essential theme is the
striving to attain the means of life and resurrection ; and from
the remotest period from which any intelligible remains of
man's handiwork have come down to us, we can see darkly,
through the glass of untold ages before the invention of writing,
evidence of the same quest and the same aspiration.
The earliest known representatives of our species (sapiens)
left records upon the walls of certain caves in France and
Northern Spain and in the graves of their dead which he who
runs may read. And the meaning of these documents is the
demonstration of primitive man's belief in the redeeming power
of blood.
Man's earliest philosophical conception seems to have been
the identification of blood with life and consciousness, " the
blood that is the life thereof."
His only concrete idea of death was associated with some
physical injury which caused loss of blood. As the effusion of
the red fluid caused loss of consciousness and death, it was not
illogical to assume that blood was the substance of consciousness
and life. Moreover these inferences found expression in prac-
tice. If blood was " life " it was obviously a rational procedure
to offer blood to persons whose vitality was defective. It
became an elixir to restore youth, to ward off danger to life
(by adding to the vital substance), and to increase the supply
of vitality to the dead, in whom life was not regarded as ended
but simply reduced in volume. At first man did not consciously
56 G. ELLIOT SMITH
contemplate the possibility of his own life coming to an end.
If he could evade such physical damage as would lead to destruc-
tion of his body he was satisfied that his life would proceed un-
checked ; but the dull and lethargic existence beyond the
grave could be enlivened if he received an extra dose of vitality
in the shape of blood or some substitute. The belief in the
efficacy of blood as an elixir of life not only exerted the most
profound and far-reaching influence in early religious ceremonies
and symbolism, but also was responsible for driving men to
embark upon such diabolical practices as head-hunting and
human sacrifice to obtain the blood which was credited with
such potent magical value. Not only so, but head-hunting was
the earliest form of warfare, and the prototype of a system which
has for fifty centuries periodically desolated the world and
brought untold misery and suffering.
But if the loss of blood was at first the only recognised cause
of death, the act of birth was the only known method of life-
giving. The portal of birth was regarded not merely as the
channel by which a new life came into being, but also as the
giver of life. The new being and its vital essence were con-
sidered to be actually created by what Semitic-speaking peoples
still call " the giver of life." The cowrie shell which simulates
this " giver of life " was then regarded as an appropriate amulet
to add vitality to living or dead, to ward off danger to life or
to give renewed supply of life-substance to the dead. But the
circumstances of its original symbolism made it also potent to
increase the fecundity of women and to facilitate birth. When
the moon also came to be regarded as a controlling influence
over these physiological processes in women the moon was
drawn into the circle of elixirs of life. This was the commence-
ment of the belief in a sky-world and a heaven, and also the
foundation-stone of astrology and astronomy.
The pearl found in a shell then came to be regarded as a
heaven-sent fragment of moon-substance and the quintessence
of life-giving substance. Hence the Persians called it margan,
THE GIVER OF LIFE 57
" the giver of life " ; and this term was adopted far and wide
from Eastern Asia to Western Europe (margarita)?
The symbolism of these shells and their products exerted a
most profound influence in shaping the early religions of Egypt,
Babylonia, the Mediterranean area and India, and, through
them, those of the world at large.
The wearing of shell-girdles was responsible for the invention
of clothing.
The desire to obtain the magic shells which the imagination
of early peoples invested with such vast importance, as the
purveyors both of religious and social boons, as the givers of
life and resurrection, of prosperity and fertility, made them
objects eagerly sought after. They were thus responsible for
the first system of currency, the first coinage.
Not only so, but incidentally the same factors were respon-
sible for fixing upon gold the arbitrary value which has made
it so potential an instrument for good and ill in the history of
civilisation.
In regions far removed from the sea-coasts which provided
the magical shell-amulets, it became increasingly difficult to
obtain the shells in quantities adequate to supply the growing
demand. Hence the practice grew up of making models of
the cowries in stone or other materials. In the deserts between
the Nile and the Red Sea (the home of the cowrie cult), which
must have been repeatedly traversed by the searchers after
shells, the soft, plastic, yellow metal was found in considerable
quantity, lying about unused and unappreciated.
When the difficulty in obtaining shells began to be felt, it
was discovered that it was easy to mould this metal into shape
and to make models of shells of it. The lightness and the beauty
3 So Dr. Mingana informs me.
58 G. ELLIOT SMITH
of such golden amulets made an immediate appeal to man's
aesthetic sense ; and in course of time the metal acquired the
reputation for " life-giving " which at first belonged only to
the form of the amulets made of it.
Hence, golden amulets acquired a double potency and a
double hold upon the imagination of mankind, which has per-
sisted ever since in the use of gold as the basis of currency and
the favourite material for making jewellery, ages after the life-
giving attributes and its value as an amulet have become dim
and almost forgotten.
So also we might trace back to their origins the inventions of
the crafts of the carpenter and the stonemason, the architect
and the shipbuilder, the inspiration to embark on maritime
expeditions or to launch out upon the search for knowledge
in biology, physics, chemistry, astronomy and meteorology ;
and in every case we would find that the original incentive
behind all human progress, material, intellectual and moral,
and the driving force in all religions, was this insistent craving
for some substance which would protect men from the dangers
to life in this world and ensure his welfare in the life to come.
If we dig deeper and try to discover the meaning of this
craving, we come to realise that its insistency and its enduring
influence are due to the fact that the preservation of life is
the fundamental and dominating instinct of human beings,
in common with all living creatures. Consciously and uncon-
sciously it shapes all men's thoughts and determines their aim.
A STAMP SEAL FROM EGYPT
By WINIFRED M. CROMPTON.
THIS seal, of soft calcareous limestone, was bought at Aswan
from a native by an English resident. It afterwards came
into the possession of the late Mr. John Cantrill, of Manchester,
who kindly gave permission for its publication, and whose
family have now carried out his wish that it should be presented
to the Manchester Museum.
The back of the seal is cut away towards the edge, in two
directions, leaving a central ridge of stone, running in the
direction of the greatest length, to serve as a handle. This
ridge, about 1-3 centimetres in height, is pierced by three holes,
each about 4 millimetres in diameter. The design on the base
is reproduced in actual size in Fig. i on the accompanying plate,
and is of an unusual type, which raises many interesting
questions.
The workmanship is extremely crude, but the chief figure is
certainly a man, with one arm on hip, the other holding an in-
determinate object of small size, unless this is merely the hand
turned in with the fingers curled upwards. The head is formed
by a round hole, which appears, of course, as a protuberance
in the impression. Two similar protuberances are introduced
into the background, one at the extreme base of the design and
one over his arm (to right). In future these will be referred to
as dots. Before the man is an antelope, running, its feet towards
the edge of the seal. Under his left arm is an object which is
probably a quadruped, with its head raised. Tree branches or
twigs are used to fill up blank spaces. Some of these " branches
bear a superficial resemblance to characters of the Minoan and
59
60 WINIFRED M. CROMPTON
Cypriote scripts, but I am unable to make a satisfactory
identification.
Very few Egyptian seals resembling this have been published.
Is its rudeness primitive or degenerate ? Is it Archaic, or,
say, Coptic ? Very rude seals of the latter period are known,
one, very similar in size, though not in form or workmanship,
being in the Manchester Museum. On this point I may say
that Sir Arthur Evans, to whom the seal now under descrip-
tion was shown not long ago, considers it early.
Some of the Egyptian cylinder seals of the Old Kingdom are
engraved in a rude style approximating to that of our stamp,
for instance, two figured by Petrie, Scarabs and Cylinders with
Names, pi. II., 53 and 54. In these the men's figures seem
similarly executed, with the head formed by a dot, while other
dots appear in the background. These cylinders, unlike our
seal, bear rude Egyptian hieroglyphs. The figures seen on the
" button seals " found in Egypt bear a much greater resem-
blance to our Aswan seal. Especially is this noticeable in a
tiny example of pink stone from a shaft tomb probably of the
Sixth Dynasty, at Abydos.1 Others may be seen in the
collection at University College, London.
These button seals, of course, are one of the standing mysteries
of Egyptian archaeology, owing to their non-Egyptian character
and likeness to seals of Minoan Crete and of Mesopotamia.
They are generally considered to be the work of the Delta people,
always rather liable to outside influence, or else to have been
introduced into Egypt through foreigners, possibly invaders,
at the close of the Old Kingdom period. The Aswan seal
appears to belong to this style, though it is not a " button,"
and it will be seen in the following pages that the motive of
its design, and sometimes the style, is found in Cretan and
Western Asiatic seals.
1 See Peet, Cemeteries of Abydos, i., pi. vii., E. 45.
A STAMP SEAL FROM EGYPT 61
Until recently it was thought that the first seals of Western
Asia were of cylinder shape ; however, lately, in the very lowest
stratum of the mound at Susa, dated by De Morgan and Jequier
to before 4000 B.C., stamp seals of stone were found.2 One
of these has a design of an ibex (or goat ? ) and tree branch
(Fig. 2). On many others the figures of animals are largely
formed by dots, drilled with a revolving metal drill known as
the burr, or bouterolle.
It is a curious fact that the dots on the background, notice-
able on the Aswan seal, are uncommon in Egypt even on button
seals, but very common on a large class of Babylonian cylinders,
as also on Minoan prism seals ; in the latter case they often,
but perhaps not always, represent a numeral. In both these
classes, too, the bodies of the figures are largely formed of dots,
drilled with the burr (see Figs. 3 and 4). The Aswan seal is
of a very soft stone, and I am not convinced that the holes are
made with a drill ; they may have been cut out with the tool
used in the rest of the design, but the dots are introduced into
the background in the same manner as in the Minoan and
Babylonian seals.
Are the Babylonian and the Minoan seals contemporaneous ?
The Egyptian button seals belong to the Sixth to the Ninth
Dynasties, chiefly the earlier time. The Minoan prism seals
derive designs from these and begin " at least at the end of
this period." 3
The Babylonian class, described by W. H. Ward as " thick
cylinders with shrines and animals " and as " standing so far
apart from Babylonian art that it is difficult to assign its
place in a scheme of classification " is less easily disposed of.
Ward, writing before he had knowledge of* the Susian stamp
seals drilled with the burr, doubts the early use of this tool in
Western Asia, and in contradistinction to Heuzey and Menant,
who consider these cylinders as archaic, places them at about
2 De Morgan, Delegation en Perse, vol. viii., p. 2.
3 Evans, Script a Minoa, p. 130.
62 WINIFRED M. CROMPTON
1500-1400 B.C.,4 after which time these drilled figures and
ornamental (?) dots are found frequently on Mycenaean and
Western Asiatic seals. Fequier, describing the Susian dis-
coveries, incidentally places these " thick cylinders " of Babylon
between the oldest cylinders of Susa (found in the stratum
above the stamp seals) and the most ancient Chaldean intaglios,
remarking that they fill the gap between them.5 This would
probably place them in the time of the Egyptian Old Kingdom
(Third to Sixth Dynasties), a little earlier than the button seals.
It may be remarked in this connection that the Minoan prisms
and Babylonian thick cylinders both show vases of globular,
skin-bottle type, with projecting spout and handle for suspen-
sion.6 These likenesses between the Minoan and Babylonian
seals seem additional reasons for assigning the earlier date to
the " thick cylinders." Isolated vases are curiously frequent on
these Minoan prisms and Babylonian thick cylinders. In our
Fig. 4, three very degraded specimens are seen, between the
two ibexes, so very debased indeed that perhaps only a com-
parison with other cylinders, such as Ward, op. cit., 501, would
enable one to realise the object as a globular-bodied vase with
spout at side and handle (like the cane one of a Japanese tea-
pot) above. Is the dot sometimes, at any rate, a final de-
gradation of this vase ? Its presence above the hindmost ibex
in our Fig. 4 inclines one to think so.
On a brown steatite disc-bead from Kamares, Crete7 (our
Fig. 3), these dots are found together with an antelope and
branch (unless this branch is entirely the antlers of the stag's
head, which appears below the antelope, with muzzle towards
the edge of the seal). Is the object above the tail of the
antelope a goblet with a slight spout, a handle with an upright
" spur," and a base like that of a wineglass, held up between the
fingers, of which only the tips are seen ? In that case one
4 See W. H. Ward, Seal Cylinders of Western Asia, pp. 179, 184.
6 Del. en Perse, vol. viii., p. 26.
6 Cp. Evans, Scripta Minoa, Fig. 726; W. H. Ward, Seal Cylinders,
Fig. 501.
7 Evans, Cretan Pictographs, Fig. 666.
A STAMP SEAL FROM EGYPT 63
has again the idea of antelope, vase, dot and branch. The
dot under the tail of the antelope may be a degraded vase.
The design of a man and ibex or antelope seems curiously
common to various nations of the ancient world. Some strik-
ing examples are shown on our plate, Figs. 5, 6, and 7.
Fig. 6, from Susa, is a pottery cylinder belonging, probably,
according to De Morgan,8 to the Archaic epoch, or lowest stratum
but one, of the mound at Susa (i.e. older than the Egyptian
First Dynasty). Fig. 7, from the cemetery of Paraskevi,
Cyprus, belongs to the Bronze Age, according to Sayce.9 This
has Cypriote characters which Sayce reads Mo-ro-ta-se. It
cannot be anything like so old as that from Susa, if De Morgan's
placing is correct, yet the style is strikingly similar. Fig. 5
is also from Cyprus, but the art more advanced. The man,
ibex and dots appear, also a branch or tree. Again from
Cyprus, but not here figured, is a rude porcelain cylinder from
a tomb of the Mycenaean period 10 containing stirrup vases
and other pottery dated to the time of Thothmes III. or
Amenhotep II. It shows the ibex, dots and man executed
in a well-developed style.
But the seal most strikingly like the Aswan stamp both in
design and workmanship is in the Ashmolean Museum, amongst
the Hittite and Cypriote examples. It is cone-shaped, and of
grey (steatite ?). The man stands with his arms akimbo,
with a beast on either side. The dots are replaced by triangles
(perhaps the Cypriote character of that form ?) and there are
no other " motives." This seal was bought in Aleppo and be-
longs, says Mr. Hogarth, " to a large class of Syrian origin and
Late Hittite or Pseudo-Hittite date. They bear a superficial
resemblance to the button seals of the Early Kingdom in
Egypt."
8 Op. cit., vol. viii., Fig. 55, pp. 24, 2.
9 Ward, op. cit., p. 345.
10 A. S. Murray, Excavations in Cyprus, pi. iv., no. 361.
64 WINIFRED M. CROMPTON
It would be interesting to know what was the idea embodied
in this design of man and antelope so widespread in time and
space. Surely it must arise from a common source ! It is not
a hunting scene. Such are, of course, frequent in the art of all
countries, and cannot be used to prove intercourse ; but in all
our cases the man is weaponless and stands with arms akimbo
or in some other more or less unaggressive attitude. Neither
does the design seem representative of a contest between a
god and the wild beasts, such as is very common indeed in the
seals of Western Asia. Yet it is possible there is some connec-
tion with this. Is it the victory of man over the lower animals
that is implied ? The human figure on the Aswan seal and that
in the Ashmolean Museum both have a rather triumphant
though not an aggressive air, and those in Figs. 6 and 7 may be
respectively about to overthrow, and seen just after over-
throwing, the ibex. The ibex of No. 6 certainly looks as if it
meant mischief ! No. 5 is a perfectly peaceful scene. On the
whole it seems more likely that if the idea of victory was in-
tended, the man or god would be obviously triumphant as he
is in large classes of Western Asiatic cylinders.
There are probably more of these rude seals from Egypt and
elsewhere in small local museums or in the hands of private
owners. Each one that is published may help to throw light
on the many problems connected with the question.
[Reprinted from the "Journal of the Manchester Egyptian and Oriental
Society, 1917-1918."]
THE HEBREW
By MAURICE A. CANNEY.
THE Hebrew word n^v, salah, when used of the spirit of God
coming with power upon a man, is commonly translated " rush,"
and there are two passages in which it is supposed to have the
same meaning, though the reference is not to the onrush of
the power of the spirit. In Amos v. 6 yislah is translated
" rush upon," in spite of the fact that there is no preposition in
the Hebrew text to represent " upon " (" lest he rush like fire
upon the house of Jacob "). And in 2 Sam. xix. 18, where the
verb is again followed by the accusative, it is translated by
H. P. Smith (ICC) " rushed through " (" rushed through the
Jordan "). It occurs again in the Hebrew text of Ecclesiasticus
viii. 10 (see R. Smend, Die Weisheit des Jesus Sirach, 1906),
and is there translated " kindle " by the Septuagint ; but the
use of the word in this passage may quite well be due to a mis-
understanding of the passage in Amos. When used of the
power of the spirit, the verb is always followed by the pre-
position ^y or ^>K, "upon." It is this that seems to have
suggested the meaning " rush upon."
As a matter of fact, the word (as distinguished from sdlah,
" to prosper ") seems to be identical with the Aramaic root
selah, which means " to split, cleave, penetrate " (cp. its use in
the Targum of splitting wood, Gen. xxii. 3, i Chron. ii. 24,
xxi. 23). What connection, if any, it has with the Arabic
salaha is doubtful, though it is curious that Muhammad gives
to a certain prophet the name Salih (Quran, vii. 71, 75 ; xi. 64,
65, 69, 91; xxvi. 142; xxvii. ^|6). The meaning "cleave"
or " penetrate " suits the two passages (2 Sam. xix. 18 ; Amos
v. 6) in which the verb is followed by the accusative, and I wish
to suggest that to cleave, cut through, or penetrate (permeate)
E 65
66 MAURICE A. CANNEY
is the real meaning of the verb even in the passages in which
it is followed by the preposition ^y or ta.
The verb means to cleave or penetrate, and so, with reference
to the spirit of Yahweh, to thrill (primarily, to drill). The
preposition is to be understood pregnantly (cp. Gesenius, Hebrew
Grammar, ed. E. Kautzsch, 1910, p. 384), so that ^y r6v may
be translated " came with a thrill upon " (lit. " thrilled upon ").
The thrill or ecstasy that comes upon a man and gives him a
sense of divine power of one kind or another is like an electric
current penetrating or cutting through the body. When it
came upon Samson (Judges xiv. 6, 19 ; xv. 14), it made him
supernaturally strong. When it came upon David (i Sam.
xvi. 13), it made him powerful and great. When it came upon
Saul (i Sam. x. 6, 10 ; xi. 6 ; xviii. 10), it made him a different
man, so that he acted like a prophet. In Judges xiv. 6 it is
even possible, I think, to find a play upon the word rhv in
the sense " to cleave." When the spirit of Yahweh rends
(comes with a thrill upon) Samson, he rends (-injwi) the
young lion as one rends a kid. With this may be compared
the curious passage in i Sam. xxiv. 8, where it is said that
" David rent (way-yeshassa') his men with words." It is usual
to emend the text, but this is not necessary. The meaning is
that David spoke in such a way and with such power as to thrill
his men and change them.
The sense of being changed after feeling the divine thrill is
so great that a prophet is sometimes impelled even to change
his name. This may account for references to a change of name
in the Old Testament. Burton, writing of the Arabs, says
(Al Madinah and Meccah, new edition of Bohn, 1913, i., p. 14,
n. 3) : " When a man appears as a Fakir or Darwaysh, he casts
off, in process of regeneration, together with other worldly
sloughs, his laical name for some brilliant coat of nomenclature
rich in religious promise."
When Yahweh exercises his power upon a man, the sensation
is not always the same. It may be pleasant or painful, bene-
ficent or maleficent. But in either case it is a cutting, piercing,
penetrating sensation. When it is beneficent, it makes the
THE HEBREW rAv 67
victim feel supernaturally strong. When it is maleficent it
makes him feel weak and depressed. In Job's case it took a
maleficent form. Note the description in Job xvL* 13-14 :
" His archers compass me round about,
He cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare ;
He poureth out my gall upon the ground.
He breaketh me with breach upon breach,
He runneth upon me like a giant."
The use of the word sdlah, "to cleave," might be taken to
imply a dim psychological recognition of the phenomena .of
dual personality, especially as it is stated that when the spirit
of Yahweh came with a thrill upon a man, it changed him into
a different person (i Sam. x. 6) ; but the cleaving, as already
noted, seems to be thought of as a cutting-through or pene-
trating rather than as a dividing.1
So much for the verb sdlah. I would suggest further that there
occurs in one passage in the Old Testament a noun derived from
it. The noun is nvi>¥,, selsah. The passage (i Sam. x. 2) is
translated in R.V. : " When thou art departed from me to-day,
then thou shalt find two men by Rachel's sepulchre in the
border of Benjamin at Zelzah." But a place Zelzah is unknown,
and a place-name is not required. The Septuagint has for
nv^l aAAo^evovs /xeyaAa. This has been taken to imply a
reading DH^v, solehim (Part, active, masc. plur. of sdlah ; cp.
Nowack, Ruth u. Bucher Samuelis, 1902). It does not follow,
however, that because the Septuagint translator rendered the
word as a verb he read it as a verb. Moreover, Lucian's recen-
sion, though it divides the word into two, supports the reading
in the Hebrew text. I take the word to be a noun, and suggest
1 The same expression is, as a matter of fact, in use in our own language to
describe a certain nervous state. J. D. Quackenbos notes (Body and Spirit,
1916, p. 69) that psychic sufferers speak of themselves as feeling, as it were,
" split in two." Without being sufferers in the same sense, ecstatics would
seem to have the same sensation. Nervous tension is not always unhealthy.
In certain conditions the same sensation may be pleasurable and healthy or
painful and harmful. The condition, for instance, in which one sees visions
is not always pathological. As H. Stanley Redgrove rightly observes (The
Magic of Experience, 1914), "the materialistic contention that all such ex-
periences have their origin in disease either of mind or body is as untenable
as the credulous belief that none is of this nature."
68 MAURICE A. CANNEY
that it was regarded by the Septuagint translator as a noun, the
form of which expressed intensity. The Greek words mean,
of course, " leaping vigorously." This probably is only another
and more vivid way of saying " in an ecstasy," which seems to
me to be the real meaning of the Hebrew expression. It is
true that in the Old Testament there is only one other example
of a noun formation with the repetition of the first radical in
the third place ( ppht, zarziph, " drop " from Bpr, Ps. Ixii. 6),
but the formation is not uncommon in Old and New Syriac
(cp. Noeldeke, Neusyr. Gramm., p. 191 f. ; Mand. Gramm.,
p. 85). Whether be-selsah is in its right place is another ques-
tion. I would transpose the word and translate : " And they
will say unto thee in ecstasy."
SOME NEW PUBLICATIONS
DURING the year the last work of our late President, James
Hope Moulton, has appeared. The book, entitled The Treasure
of the Magi : A Study of Modern Zoroastrianism (Humphrey
Milford, 1917, pp. xiii. + 273, 8s. 6d. net), is a contribution to
' The Religious Quest of India " series. In its typewritten
form it was sent by post to England before Dr. Moulton left
India, and the task of seeing the work through the Press was
committed to the Bishop of Salford. It need hardly be said
that The Treasure of the Magi is marked by the learning which
the world had come to associate with the name of the author.
But it should be stated that the writer deals with his subject
in a style and manner such as to make it of fascinating interest.
The work reflects the charm of the writer's personality.
Mr. I. Wassilevsky has published a very interesting and timely
brochure entitled Chassidism : A Resume of Modern Hebrew
Mysticism (Geo. Toulmin & Sons, Ltd., pp. 31, is.), with a
Preface by Professor C. H. Herford. As a contribution to a
subject which is now attracting widespread attention, and to
a branch of it on which little as yet has been written, Mr.
Wassilevsky's publication should be welcomed by many
readers. The author has made a special study of modern
Hebrew literature.
Orientalists will find it worth while to read Mr. W. J. Perry's
Ethnological Study of Warfare (published for the Manchester
Literary and Philosophical Society by the University Press,
1917, pp. 16, is. 6d.). The study is marked by Mr. Perry's
usual originality. Evidence is produced to show that warfare
is not a natural thing among mankind. " Before the arrival
of the ' children of the sun ' savage peoples would be at the stage
70 SOME NEW PUBLICATIONS
of the Punan, Bushmen, Tikopians, Eskimo, and others — peace-
ful, without hereditary chiefs or warriors, nobles or slaves.
The conclusion suggested by the facts is that a people will be
warlike or peaceful, according as they have or have not a here-
ditary warrior aristocracy ; if a warlike community loses its
military aristocracy, it will become peaceful, and if a peaceful
community acquires a warrior aristocracy it will become war-
like."
Professor T. W. Rhys-Davids, one of our former Presidents,
has published a noteworthy paper, Cosmic Law in Ancient
Thought (published for the British Academy by Humphrey
Milford, 1918, pp. n, is. net). The purport of the paper will
be clear from the following passage : — " If one glances over the
tables of contents to the best and latest treatises on the early
religious beliefs of the four or five countries where early records
have been found — such as de Groot on China, Hopkins on
India, Jastrow on Mesopotamia, or Breasted on Egypt — one
sees that they are mainly, if not quite exclusively, concerned
with animistic ideas or with the applications of such ideas. In
the course of my ten years' lectures on Comparative Religion,
I came across quite a number of early religious beliefs and
practices which by no stretch of ingenuity could be brought
under animism. They were not explained in the books, and
could not be explained, by the theory of a detachable soul. I
found myself forced to the conclusion that we must seek for at
least one additional hypothesis, as far-reaching as animism,
and altogether different from it, before we could explain all the
facts/* Behind all the groups of non-animistic beliefs, the
writer thinks it possible to discern one single underlying prin-
ciple, the belief in a certain rule, order, law. And since we need
to invent a name for it — a name that does not imply or suggest
a law-giver, and that does not suffer from the disadvantage
of being still in common use — it may be called Normalism. To
this term a specific, scientifically exact meaning can be attached.
Another timely publication is Edward G. Browne's address,
SOME NEW PUBLICATIONS 71
The Persian Constitutional Movement (published for the British
Academy by Humphrey Milford, 1918, pp. 20, is. 6d. net).
Its aim is on the one hand to show how considerable is the
debt which the world owes to Persia, and, on the other, to ex-
plain the genesis and briefly trace the history of the Constitu-
tional or National Movement. Professor Browne makes us
realise how much we owe to Persian religion, philosophy, science,
literature and art. The disappearance of Persia from the
society of independent states would, he contends, be a mis-
fortune not only to herself but to the whole human race. " Un-
happily there are a hundred scholars to plead the claims of
Greece and Italy for one who can plead the not less cogent cause
of Persia." As regards the Constitution Movement, Professor
Browne thinks that no candid student of the last ten or eleven
years will venture to maintain that the Persian Constitution
was ever allowed a fair chance of success, and it is for this
fair chance that he pleads. " And if the reign of Peace and
Righteousness for which a tortured world prays is to come, it
must be based on a recognition of the rights of all nations, and
not merely of the nations of Europe."
The importance of Professor Flinders Petrie's latest book,
Eastern Exploration (Constable & Co., 1918, pp. 118, 2s. 6d.
net), is in some respects out of all proportion to its size. It
contains, as might be expected, interesting accounts of the
results of past exploration and excavation in Palestine and
Mesopotamia. But what makes it of special importance is its
disclosures as to the dangers that threaten the ancient sites
and monuments now and in the future. " The political situa-
tion in the East as now developed, and the future possibilities
before us, constitute, perhaps, the heaviest responsibility for
historical study that has ever fallen on any nation. We may
have in our hands the development of the sites of the greatest
ancient civilisation, the parents of our own knowledge, learn-
ing and religion ; and it will rest upon us to settle whether we
will preserve and understand that past, or whether we will
deliberately let it be destroyed." The matter is indeed urgent.
72 SOME NEW PUBLICATIONS
It may seem rather premature, as Professor Flinders Petrie
says, to discuss what should be done at the end of the war ;
but we are already pledged to a definite course politically, if we
can succeed in controlling it, and the circumstances are such
that if we are not prepared to do immediately all that is neces-
sary for the protection and preservation of sites, monuments,
and other antiquities, irreparable injury will be done to science
and civilisation.
M. A. C.
THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH
JOURNAL OF THE MANCHESTER
EGYPTIAN AND- ORIENTAL
SOCIETY
1918-1919
MANCHESTER
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
12 LIME GROVE, OXFORD ROAD
LONGMANS, GREEN & CO.
LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, ETC.
1919
MANCHESTER EGYPTIAN AND ORIENTAL SOCIETY
SESSION 1918-1919
List of Officers and Members
President
Professor MAURICE A. CANNEY, M.A.
Vice-presidents
The Vice-Chancellor of the University (Sir HENRY MIERS, M.A., Ph.D., D.Sc., F.R.S.)
The Right Rev. THE LORD BISHOP OF
LINCOLN (E. L. HICKS, D.D.
F. A. BRUTON, M.A.
.D.)
Principal R. M. BURROWS, D.Litt. (King's
College, London)
S. H. CAPPER, M.A.
T. W. RHYS DAVIDS, LL.D., Ph.D.,
F.B.A.
Hon. Professor Sir W. BOYD DAVVKINS,
A. H. GARDINER, D.Litt.
JESSE HAWORTH, LL.D.
W. EVANS HOYLE, M.A., D.Sc., M.R.C.S.
Professor E. H. PARKER, M.A.
Professor A. S. PEAKE, M.A., D.D.
The Right Rev. THE BISHOP OF SALFORD
(L. C. CASARTELLI, D.Litt.Or., D.D.)
Professor G. ELLIOT SMITH, M.A., M.D.,
F.R.S. *
M.A., D.Sc., F.R.S.
Other Members of the Council
Ven. Archdeacon ALLEN, M.A.
Principal W. H. BENNETT, M.A., D.D.
Litt.D.
Mrs. RHYS DAVIDS, M.A.
Professor A. C. DICKIE, M.A., F.S.A.,
F.R.I. B.A.
Miss CAROLINE HERFORD, M.A.
Mrs. HOPE W. HOGG, M.A.
Mrs. W. HARTAS JACKSON
THE LIBRARIAN OF THE RYLANDS
LIBRARY (Mr. H. GUPPY, M.A.)
Principal MARSHALL, M.A., D.D.
Rev. }. A. MEESON, M.A., LL.B.
T. ERIC PEET, M.A.
W. M. TATTERS ALL, D.Sc.
Rev. W. L. WARDLE, M.A., B.D.
Editor of Journal- Professor MAURICE A. CANNEY, M.A.
Honorary Secretary and Treasurer- Miss W. M. CROMPTON
Honorary Auditor— Mr. E. MELLAND
Other Members of the Society
Sir F. F. ADAM, H. ALLAN, P. J. ANDERSON, N. ANGLIN, A. ARCHER-BETHAM, Dr.
ASHWORTH, Dr. C. J. BALL, Miss A. E. F. BARLOW, J. R. BARLOW, Dr. BERLIN, C. H.
BICKERTON, Dr. J. S. BLACK, G. BONNERJEE, Miss E. E. BOUGHEY, R. A. BURROWS,
Miss M. BURTON, Wm. BURTON, Prof. W. M. CALDER, Mrs. CANNEY, Mrs. CAWTHORNE,
Miss CAWTHORNE, F. O. COLEMAN, Prof. R. S. CONWA Y, Dr. D. CORE, R. H. CROMPTON,
Prof. T. W. DAVIES, Miss DAVISON, W. J. DEAN, C. W. DUCKWORTH, Mrs. ECKHARD,
M. H. FARBRIDGE, Col. P. FLETCHER, Mrs. P. FLETCHER, Rev. T. FISH, J. A. HAMWEE,
Miss K. HALLIDAY, F. J. HARDING, J. S. HARDMAN, Mrs. J. HAWORTH, H. A. HENDER-
SON, Miss M. HEYWOOD, Prof. S. J. HICKSON, Miss JACKSON, Canon C. H. W. JOHNS,
Miss E. F. KNOTT, Mrs. LANGFORD, J. H. LYNDE, Rev. H. McLACHLAN, E. MELLAND,
Rev. J. PEREIRA-MENDOZA, Dr. A, MINGANA, MUSEE GUIMET, Paris, B. RODRIGUES.
PEREIRA, Miss K. QUALTROUGH, G. W. REED, H. L. ROTH, THE RYLANDS LIBRARY,
B. C. RYDER, J. P. SCOTT, Major SAMUELS, V.D., Mrs. S. SIMON, Rev. D. C. SIMPSON,
I. W. SLOTKI, Mrs. ELLIOT SMITH, Mrs. W. M. TATTERSALL, Mrs TATHAM, Rev. W.
THOMAS, T. G. TURNER, Rev. J. B. TURNER, Prof. G. UNWIN, H. WELD-BLUNDELL,
Miss K. WILKINSON.
Objects of the Society
(i.) To discuss questions of interest with regard to the languages, literatures, history and archaeology of
Egypt and the Orient.
(ii.) To help the work of the excavating societies in any possible way.
(iii.) To issue, if possible, a Journal. If this is not possible, to print at least a Report, including abstracts
of the papers read at the meetings of the Society.1
SUBSCRIPTIONS
(a) For ordinary members, 5s. per annum (student members, 2s. 6d.).
(3) For Journal members, 10s. 6d., of which 5s. 6d. is assigned to the Special Publications Fund.
Subscriptions are due in January.
PUBLICATIONS
Journal of the Manchester Oriental Society for 1911 .. .. .. .. 5s.0d.net.
Journal of the Society, 1912-13 ; 1913-14 ; 1914-15 ; 1915-16 ; 1916-17 ; 1917-18 ; 1918-19 each 5s. Od. net.
MancJieste*- Egyptian Association Report, 1009-12 .. .. . . .. eachOs.3d.net.
Report of the Society, annually, 1912-13 to 1918-19 .. .. .. .. Is. 6d. net.
List of Books on Egyptology, September 1912, to Septetnber 1913, and Catalogue of
Library of the Society . . . . . . . . . . Os. 6d. net.
New Members can buy back numbers at half-price.
1 There is a Special Publications Fund, for which subscriptions and donations are invited.
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MANCHESTER EGYPTIAN AND ORIENTAL SOCIETY
SESSION 1918-1919
List of Officers and Members
President
Professor MAURICE A. CANNEY, M.A.
Vice-presidents
The Vice-Chancellor of the University (Sir HENRY MIERS, M.A., Ph.D., D.Sc., F.R.S.)
The Right Rev. THE LORD BISHOP OF
LINCOLN (E. L. HICKS, D.D.)
F. A. BRUTON, M.A.
Principal R. M. BURROWS, D.Litt. (King's
College, London)
S. H. CAPPER, M.A.
T. W. RHYS DAVIDS, LL.D., Ph.D.,
F.B.A.
Hon. Professor Sir W. BOYD DAWKINS,
A. H. GARDINER, D.Litt.
JESSE HAWORTH, LL.D.
W. EVANS HOYLE, M.A., D.Sc., M.R.C.S.
Professor E. H. PARKER, M.A.
Professor A. S. PEAKE, M.A., D.D.
The Right Rev. THE BISHOP OF SALFORD
(L. C. CASARTELLI, D.Litt.Or., D.D.)
Professor G. ELLIOT SMITH, M.A., M.D.,
F.R.S. ""
M.A.. D.Sc., F.R.S.
Other Members of the Council
Ven. Archdeacon ALLEN, M.A.
Principal W. H. BENNETT, M.A., D.D.
Litt.D.
Mrs. RHYS DAVIDS, M.A.
Professor A. C. DICKIE, M.A., F.S.A.,
F.R.I. B.A.
Miss CAROLINE HERFORD, M.A.
Mrs. HOPE W. HOGG, M.A.
Mrs. W. HARTAS JACKSON
THE LIBRARIAN OF THE RYLANDS
LIBRARY (Mr. H. GUPPY, M.A.)
Principal MARSHALL, M.A., D.D.
Rev. J. A. MEESON, M.A., LL.B.
T. ERIC PEET, M.A.
W. M. TATTERS ALL, D.Sc.
Rev. W. L. WARDLE, M.A., B.D.
Editor of Journal- Professor MAURICE A. CANNEY, M.A.
Honorary Secretary and Treasurer— Miss W. M. CROMPTON
Honorary Auditor— Mr. E. MELLAND
Other Members of the Society
Sir F. F. ADAM, H. ALLAN, P. J. ANDERSON, N. ANGLIN, A. ARCHER-BETHAM, Dr.
ASHWORTH, Dr. C. J. BALL, Miss A. E. F. BARLOW, J. R. BARLOW, Dr. BERLIN, C. H.
BICKERTON, Dr. J. S. BLACK, G. BONNERJEE, Miss E. E. BOUGHEY, R. A. BURROWS,
Miss M. BURTON, Wm. BURTON, Prof. W. M. CALDER, Mrs. CANNEY, Mrs. CAWTHORNE,
Miss CAWTHORNE, F. O. COLEMAN, Prof. R. S. CONWA Y, Dr. D. CORE, R. H. CROMPTON,
Prof. T. W. DAVIES, Miss DAVISON, W. J. DEAN, C. W. DUCKWORTH, Mrs. ECKHARD,
M. H. FARBRIDGE, Col. P. FLETCHER, Mrs. P. FLETCHER, Rev. T. FISH, J. A. HAMWEE,
Miss K. HALLIDAY, F. J. HARDING, J. S. HARDMAN, Mrs. J. HAWORTH. H. A. HENDER-
SON, Miss M. HEYWOOD, Prof. S. J. HICKSON, Miss JACKSON, Canon C. H. W. JOHNS,
Miss E. F. KNOTT, Mrs. LANGFORD, J. H. LYNDE, Rev. H. McLACHLAN, E. MELLAND,
Rev. J. PEREIRA-MENDOZA, Dr. A. MINGANA, MUSEE GUIMET, Paris, B. RODRIGUES-
PEREIRA, Miss K. QUALTROUGH, G. W. REED, H. L. ROTH, THE RYLANDS LIBRARY,
B. C. RYDER, J. P. SCOTT, Major SAMUELS, V.D., Mrs. S. SIMON, Rev. D. C. SIMPSON,
I. W. SLOTKI, Mrs. ELLIOT SMITH, Mrs. W. M. TATTERSALL, Mrs TATHAM, Rev. W.
THOMAS, T. G. TURNER, Rev. J. B. TURNER, Prof. G. UNWIN, H. WELD-BLUNDELL,
Miss K. WILKINSON.
Objects of the Society
(5.) To discuss questions of interest with regard to the languages, literatures, history and archaeology of
Egypt and the Orient.
(ii.) To help the work of the excavating societies in any possible way.
(iii.) To issue, if possible, a Journal. If this is not possible, to print at least a Report, including abstracts
of the papers read at the meetings of the Society.1
SUBSCRIPTIONS
(a) For ordinary members, 5s. per annum (student members, 2s. 6d.).
(b) For Journal members, Ids. 6d., of which 5s. 6d. is assigned to the Special Publications Fund.
Subscriptions are due in January.
PUBLICATIONS
Journal of the Manchester Oriental Society for 1911 . . . . . . . . 5s. Od. net.
Journal of the Society, 1912-13 ; 1913-14 ; 1914-15 ; 1915-16 ; 1916-17 ; 1917-18 ; 1918-19 each 5s. Od. net.
Manchester- Egyptian Association Report, 1009-12 . . . . . . ' . , each Os. 3d. net.
Report of the Society, annually, 1912-13 to 1918-19 . . . . . . . . Is. 6d. net.
List of Books on Egyptology, September 1912, to September 1913, and Catalogue of
Library of the Society . . .. . . .... . . . . Os. 6d. net.
New Members can buy back numbers at half-price.
1 There is a Special Publications Fund, for which subscriptions and donations are invited.
4
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8 REPORT
condition, but the publication of the Journal is still largely
dependent on the generosity of a few members. Mrs. Philip
Fletcher has repeated her kind donation of £$ towards this
end, and so leaves us free from anxiety as to this year's issue.
If each Journal member would induce one friend to join during
the coming year, our position would be, secure.
Since the above was written, we have learned with great
sorrow of the death of another member of the Society, Dr. M.
Berlin. Dr. Berlin's addresses were greatly appreciated, and
his kindly presence will be missed by all of us. We have
heard also with deep regret of the death of Dr. L. W. King,
one of the most eminent Orientalists this country fcas pro_
duced. It will be remembered that Dr. King on one occasion
visited the Society and delivered a lecture. He was a con-
tributor to the Journal, and always took a keen interest in our
various activities. We deplore the loss not only of a great
scholar, but also of a man whose sympathy and encouragement
ever spurred us on to greater efforts.
The Balance Sheet appears on p. 5.
W. M. C.
BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS ADDED TO ,
THE COLLECTION OF THE SOCIETY
'SINGE SEPTEMBER, 1918
Books may be borrowed (by members only) by applying to the Treasttrer- Secretary at
the JManchester Museum, from whom also the Catalogue published 1913
may be had, price 3d.
The Athenaeum —
Subject Index to Periodicals — Class List, 1916 — Language and Literature.1
Blackman, A. M. —
" Priest, Priesthood (Egyptian)." Reprint from The Encyclopedia of Religion
and Ethics, pp. 293-302. 2
"Purification (Egyptian).5' Reprint from The Encyclopedia of Religion
and Ethics, pp. 476-482. 2
Casartelli, L C., Bishop of Sal ford —
"A Problem of After- War Reconstruction: The Study of Foreign Lan-
guages," pp. 18. 1919.2
Obituary Notices on Prof. L. H. Mills, A. F. R. Hoernle and Prof. Julius
Eggeling, by Dr. Casartelli and others, pp. i8.2
G. Le Strange, trans.
"The Geographical Part of the Nuzhat-al-Qulub," composed by Hamd-
Allah-Mustawfi of Qazwin in 740 (1340), pp. 322. 1919. 3
Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society —
Journal, 1917-1918.
Mills, Prof. L. H.
" Yasna XLVII. of the Gatha," (a) Spentamainyu rendered in its Sanskrit
Equivalents (reprint, pp. 7. 1919). 4
Musee Guimet —
" Le Revue de 1'Histoire des Religions," vol. LXXVIL, no. I, vol. LXXV.,
vol. LXXIV.5
"Conferences Faites en 1914,'' pp. 199, pis. 4O.5
Poussin, L. de laVallee —
" The Way to Nirvana," pp, 172. 1917. 4
Ruggeri, V. Guiffrida—
" Se i popoli del mare delle iscrizione geroglifiche appartengano tutti all'
Italia," pp. 18 (reprint, 1918). 2
" Alcune Annotazione Etnologiche all opera dei Prof. E. Schiapparelli.
La geografia dell' Africa orientale secondo le indicazioni dei monumenti
egiziani," pp. 4 (reprint, 1916). 2
" Prime linee di un' Antropologia sistematica dell' Asia," pp. 87 (reprint,
1919). 2
Rylands' Library —
Bulletin to date.6
University of Rome —
" Rivista degli Studi Orientale," vol. VIII., fasc. I, 1919. s
University of Uppsala5- —
" Le Monde Oriental," 1917, 1918.
Watson, Col. Sir C. M.—
"Fifty Years' Work in the Holy Land," 1865-1915, pp. 190, map (Pales-
tine Exploration Fund).7
1 Presented by the Publishers. 2 Presented by the Author.
3 Presented by the Trustees of the Gibb Memorial.
4 Presented by the Bishop of Salford.
5 Exchange.
6 Presented by the Governors of the John Rylands' Library.
7 Purchased.
8 REPORT
condition, but the publication of the Journal is still largely
dependent on the generosity of a few members. Mrs. Philip
Fletcher has repeated her kind donation of £$ towards this
end, and so leaves us free from anxiety as to this year's issue.
If each Journal member would induce one friend to join during
the coming year, our position would be^ secure.
Since the above was written, we have learned with great
sorrow of the death of another member of the Society, Dr. M.
Berlin. Dr. Berlin's addresses were greatly appreciated, and
his kindly presence will be missed by all of us. We have
heard also with deep regret of the death of Dr. L. W. King,
one of the most eminent Orientalists this country fcas pro-
duced. It will be remembered that Dr. King on one occasion
visited the Society and delivered a lecture. He was a con-
tributor to the Journal, and always took a keen interest in our
various activities. We deplore the loss not only of a great
scholar, but also of a man whose sympathy and encouragement
ever spurred us on to greater efforts.
The Balance Sheet appears on p. 5.
W. M. C.
BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS ADDED TO .
THE COLLECTION OF THE SOCIETY
'SINGE SEPTEMBER, 1918
Books may be borrowed (by members only) by applying to the Treasurer-Secretary at
the Manchester Museum, from "whom also the Catalogue published 1913
may be had, price 3d.
The Athenoeum —
Subject Index to Periodicals — Class List, 1916 — Language and Literature.1
Blackman, A. M.—
" Priest, Priesthood (Egyptian)." Reprint from 77?* Encyclopedia of Religion
and Ethics, pp. 293-302. 2
"Purification (Egyptian)." Reprint from The Encyclopedia of Religion
and Ethics, pp. 476-482. 2
Casartelli, L C., Bishop of Salford —
"A Problem of After- War Reconstruction: The Study of Foreign Lan-
guages," pp. 18. 1919. 2
Obituary Notices on Prof. L. H.. Mills, A. F. R. Hoernle and Prof. Julius
Eggeling, by Dr. Casartelli and others, pp. i8.2
G. Le Strange, trans.
"The Geographical Part of the Nuzhat-al-Qulub," composed by Plamd-
Allah-Mustawfi of Qazwin in 740 (1340), pp. 322. 1919. 3
Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society —
Journal, 1917-1918.
Mills, Prof. L. H.
" Yasna XLVII. of the Gatha," (a) Spentamainyu rendered in its Sanskrit
Equivalents (reprint, pp. 7. 1919). 4
Musee Guimet —
" Le Revue de 1'Histoire des Religions," vol. LXXVIL, no. I, vol. LXXV.,
vol. LXXIV.5
"Conferences Faites en 1914,'' pp. 199, pis. 4O.5
Poussin, L. de la Yallee —
" The Way to Nirvana," pp, 172. 1917.*
Ruggeri, V. Guiffrida —
" Se i popoli del mare delle iscrizione geroglifiche appartengano tutti all'
Italia," pp. 18 (reprint, 1918). 2
" Alcune Annotazione Etnologiche all opera dei Prof. E. Schiapparelli.
La geografia dell' Africa orientale secondo le indicazioni dei monument!
egiziani," pp. 4 (reprint, 1916). 2
" Prime linee di un' Antropologia sistematica dell' Asia," pp. 87 (reprint,
1919). 2
Rylands' Library —
Bulletin to date.6
University of Rome —
" Rivista degli Studi Orientale," vol. VIII. , fasc. I, I9I9-5
University of Uppsala5 —
" Le Monde Oriental," 1917, 1918.
Watson, Col. Sir C. M. —
"Fifty Years' Work in the Holy Land," 1865-1915, pp. 190, map (Pales-
tine Exploration Fund).7
1 Presented by the Publishers. 2 Presented by the Author.
3 Presented by the Trustees of the Gibb Memorial.
4 Presented by the Bishop of Salford.
5 Exchange.
s Presented by the Governors of the John Rylands' Library.
7 Purchased.
12 REPORT
silver from Syria and stone vases. The invaders seem to have
come from the Red Sea. The boats depicted on this buff pottery
bear ensigns, a few of which appear as the standards of the
nomes of Egypt in historic times, but the ensigns were probably
all local badges of towns. The reed, signifying the King of
Upper Egypt, is found on pottery at S.D. 50, and the Red
Crown of the Kings of Lower Egypt appears as earl) as
S.D. 37. Human figures begin to be drawn about 30 ; by S.D. 45
they have become conventional. At S.D. 33 elephants' tusks
with knobs on one end in the shape of a human head are found.
These were probably used for magical purposes, as they are in
Africa to-day, a priest"being supposed to be able to bring a man's
soul into a tusk and so steal it from him. Human heads of the
paste figures were always represented bald, and a wig was tied
on. This showed that the Egyptians shaved from the earliest
times.
Figures immensely fat round the hips were made only in the
first civilization. Probably they were copied from the last
remnants of the Paleolithic people who may have been still
employed as slaves by the Egyptians of that time. These large-
hipped figures are reported from Poland, France, Spain, Malta,
Crete, Algiers and Egypt ; this shows a steady pushing back
of the Paleolithic peoples from Europe and Africa. The Bush-
men of Koranna, South Africa, appear to be their modern
representatives.
Articles of the toilet are found in all periods. Ivory models
of sandals were made at the end of the first civilization. The
early combs had long teeth and ornamented tops — they were
for holding up the hair ; those of the second civilization had
short teeth.
Ivory spoons appear about S.D. 46.
The older mace heads were of disc shape, the later, still used
in historic times, were pear-shaped.
Harpoons of bone, ivory and copper are known. The
development of the harpoon has always been supposed to be
from one barb to many, but in Egypt it is from many to one.
Copper daggers of triangular form occur at S.D. 50. At 63 one
REPORT 13
is leaf-shaped and exactly like Cypriote daggers, so probably
imported.
Slate palettes are common, the people having used them as
a flat surface on which to grind down malachite for face paint..
The earliest are a rhombic shape. At S.D. 34 well-formed
outlines of animals are a usual style of palette. These animal
shapes gradually decay till they have degraded beyond recogni-
tion except through noting the stages. Even in the first
civilization the knowledge of arithmetic was fairly advanced,
for the hieroglyph for the fraction one-half is found drawn on
a vase of S.D. 30-40.
The third period, after S.D. 60, brings in the Dynastic Race.
The people who established the civilization of the Early
Dynastic period came probably from Elam. They were shorter
than the Egyptians whom they conquered, and the result of
their mingling with them was to reduce the average height of
the inhabitants of the country.
In reply to a question, the lecturer stated that there was
no true Neolithic Age in Egypt. Copper appears with flints of
the Magdalenean type. Polished stone was at all times ex-
tremely rare. The few polished stone axes found were importa-
tions from Nubia. However, the "ripple-flaking" of the
exquisite stone knives of the second period was done on
a ground surface.
The Second Meeting was held at the University on
Wednesday, January 29th, 1919, the President in the chair.
After the election of new members, who included Dr. Rendel
Harris, the President called upon the Rev. I. RafTalovich, of
Liverpool, to deliver a lecture on " Palestine and the Future
of the Jews." The lecturer dealt first with the history of the
modern National Movement, and then described the work done
by the Jews in Palestine in more recent years. In 1854 Sir
Moses Montefiori negotiated for a settlement of Jews in
Palestine. In 1870 an Agricultural School was founded, and
in 1878 the agricultural movement was further developed by
the Jews of Jerusalem. The year 1880 was a great landmark.
Anti-Semitism broke out in Russia, and a stream of Jewish blood
14 REPORT
flowed. Emigration thus became an absolute necessity. Many
Jews went to America, while a band of national enthusiasts
sounded the cry, " Back to Palestine!" A real start was now
made with Jewish colonies in Palestine. At this time, however,
the enthusiasm of the colonists was much greater than their
knowledge. They were ignorant of their own country and of
the science of agriculture. They had also to contend with the
opposition of the Turkish Government. In 1897 the political
ideal came to birth, and Zionism was founded. Dr. Herzl an-
nounced to the world that the Jews demanded justice. Then
came the Basle Programme, which aimed at creating a real
home in Palestine for the Jewish people. The lecturer went
on to explain what had been done by and for the Jews in
more recent years. The Zionists had founded financial instru-
ments. Their Jewish National Fund was intended to furnish
the means by which the land could be redeemed for the people.
Referring to Mr. Balfour's historic declaration, Mr. Raffalovich
said that this was not the first time the Jews had had reason
to be grateful to England. England had shown a special
interest in Palestine. In 1804 the first Society for the Explora-
tion of Palestine was founded in England. In. 1830 the Scottish
Church had interested itself in the restoration of the Jews. The
first Consul in Palestine was an Englishman. In conclusion,
the lecturer showed, partly by means of an excellent series of
lantern-slides, what great progress the Jews have already made
in developing education and industry in the country. He
claimed that the work done during the last thirty years had
demonstrated, on the one hand, the power of the Jews to
colonize Palestine, and, on the other hand, their fitness to
govern themselves. There was real need of a home for the
Jews, for even to-day twelve millions of them had none.
The Third Meeting was held at the University on Wednesday,
February iQth, 1919, the President in the chair. It was agreed
that a grant of £2, 2s. be made from the funds of the Society
to the newly established British School of Archaeology in
Palestine. It was further resolved that the Council should
be empowered in future to make such small grants without
REPORT 15
bringing the matter before the whole body of members. The
President called on Dr. Elliot Smith to deliver his address on
" The Intercourse between Egypt, Sumer and Elam." The
lecturer said that while few writers have been bold enough
absolutely to deny any connection between the Babylonian and
Egyptian cultures, most of those who have admitted the reality
of the influence exerted by one country on the other have
assumed that the borrowing was chiefly on the part of Egypt
from Sumer and Babylon. Relatively few writers have claimed
that Egypt was the nursery of civilization from which Sumer
drew its inspiration. He contended that the borrowing was on
the other side, and produced evidence of an intimate cultural
connection that must have linked Protodynastic Egypt to
Elam and Sumer, and these in turn with the Iranian and
Turanian domains.
The Fourth Meeting of the Session was held at the
University on March I4th, at 7.30 P.M., the President in the
chair.
Before proceeding to the business of the meeting the
President referred to the sad loss the Society had sustained
through the death of the Rev. C. L. Bedale, Special Lecturer
in Assyriology in the University of Manchester, in a military
hospital at Cambridge, from an illness contracted in the course
of his duties as a chaplain to the Forces.
Dr Walter Tattersall proposed the following resolution : —
" The Manchester Egyptian and Oriential Society, of which
the Rev. C. L. Bedale was a distinguished and highly
esteemed member, and on whose Council he sat, has heard of
his death with great sorrow, and desires to express the
deepest sympathy with Mrs. Bedale and with his children, as
also with Mr. and Mrs. Bedale, senior. The Society recognizes
the loss, not only of a learned fellow-worker and enthusiastic
supporter, but also of one who was in every sense a sincere
friend."
This was seconded by Mrs. Hope W. Hogg, and carried
unanimously.
The President then called on Dr. A. M. Blackman to deliver
16 REPORT
his address on "The House of the Morning." The lecturer
remarked that :
The Heliopolitan sun-god Re'-Atum was represented by his
priests as reborn every morning as the result of his under-
going lustration. The lustral washing was performed by the
sun-god himself, or he was assisted thereat by one or two
divinities, namely, the goddess Kebhowet, daughter of Anubis>
or the two gods Horus and Thoth. Thus, on account of his
function of bath-attendant of the sun-god, a lustration-formula
at Philae speaks of Thoth as " the Thoth of Re'."
The daily service in the Heliopolitan sun-temple began at
dawn. The high-priest commenced the long series of episodes
forming the daily temple liturgy by washing or sprinkling the
sun-god's cultus-image, thus imitating the regenerative lustration
which was supposed to be daily undergone by that god before
he appeared above the eastern horizon.
The high-priest of the Heliopolitan sun-god in pre-dynastic
times -was of course the King of Heliopolis. This king was
regarded both as the son and also as the embodiment of the
o
sun-god. As such he himself likewise had to undergo lustration
every day at dawn. The lustral washing of the king-priest
took place before he officiated in the sun-temple, and as a
result of it he was thought to be reborn like his divine
prototype.
The king-priest's lustration was performed in an adjunct of
the temple and of the attached royal residence ; it was called
the House of the Morning (pr-dw3t) because of the early hour
at which the lustration was performed, namely, just before
sun-rise.
Owing to his close association with the sun-god the king
was supposed to be assisted at this lustration by Horus and
Thoth, who, as we have seen, were held to be the sun-god's
bath-attendants.
Horus and Seth were also supposed to act as lustrators of
the king in the House of the Morning. This idea must have
arisen after Heliopolis had become, as Professor Sethe maintains
it did, the capital of a united Egypt in pre-dynastic times,
REPORT 17
Horus and Seth being the tutelary gods of Lower and Upper
Egypt respectively.
Actually the king was sprinkled by two priestly officiants
impersonating either pair of gods and probably wearing appro-
priate masks.
The water used for the ceremonial washing of the king, and
doubtless also for the sprinkling of the sun-god's cultus-image,
was brought from a sacred pool attached to the temple. The
water of the pool was identified with that of Nun, the primeval
ocean out of which the sun-god was born in the first instance.
While the lustrators poured the holy water over the king
they recited formulae which asserted that it imbued him with
the solar qualities of life and good fortune, and that by means
of it he was reborn and rejuvenated like the sun-god, or that
the purification he was undergoing was that of the gods Horus,
Thoth, and Seth themselves, and also that of Sepa, a divinity
likewise closely connected with the Heliopolitan sun-cult.
The purification of the king was completed by fumigating
him with incense and by presenting him with balls of natron
to chew. The king was not only purified by the incense
smoke, but by means of it was brought into communion with
the four gods, Horus, Thoth, Seth and Sepa, and their kas, and
also with his own ka. The natron also, we learn from one of
the formulae pronounced at its presentation, was regarded as
that of the four above-mentioned gods. Another formula
asserts that it has been chewed and spat out by Horus and
Seth, and that when the king has chewed it his mouth becomes
" like the mouth of a calf of milk on the day it was born." The
king was also said to be divinized by the natron, there being a
play on the words niter " natron " and nuter " god."
By being washed or sprinkled with holy water and fumigated
with incense, and by the chewing of natron, the king was
mysteriously reborn, brought into contact with divinities, and
imbued with their unearthly qualities, and his mouth made fit
to chant the sun-god's praises and recite the formulae which
accompanied the enactment of the various episodes composing
the daily service in the sun -temple.
B
i8 REPORT
Fumigation, it should be noted, was the regular sequel to a
bath or to the washing of the hands before a banquet. The
purification undergone by Egyptian priests before they entered
upon their course comprised the " drinking'' of natron. Like-
wise the wailing women who bemoaned Osiris at the annual
re-enactment of his embalmment and revivification, besides
purifying themselves four times, washed their mouths, chewed
natron, and fumigated themselves with incense, in order that
both they and the lamentations with which they beatified the god
might be pure. In this connection it is, perhaps, not inappro-
priate to point out that the modern Egyptians still perform
ablutions before praying, these ablutions consisting, among
other acts, in the washing of the mouth. (See Lane, Manners
and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, ed. 1895, p. 82.)
After being thus purified the king-priest was robed, anointed,
decked with various ornaments, and invested with the royal
insignia. In fact what took place in the House of the Morning
was an elaborate ceremonial toilet. He was now ready to enter
the temple.
To return once more to the daily service performed in the
Heliopolitan sun-temple. After having washed or sprinkled
the god's image, the king-priest completed its toilet in exactly
the same way as his own had been completed by the two
officiants in the House of the Morning — viz. he fumigated it
with incense, presented it with natron for the cleansing of its
mouth, and then clothed, anointed, and arrayed it in various
ornaments, and invested it with royal insignia.
That the toilet of the sun-god should be identical with that
of the king is perfectly natural. The god was conceived of as
a king, indeed as the prototype of all Heliopolitan kings ;
accordingly the ideas about the god and the king, and also the
ceremonies performed on their behalf, acted and re-acted upon
one another.
The king's close connection with the sun-god was not severed
by death. The dead king was supposed to ascend to heaven,
where he was assimilated to or identified with the sun-god or
o
else held the position of the god's son.
REPORT ig
But before he could ascend to heaven it was thought that he
had to undergo the same regenerative lustration as that daily
undergone by his divine prototype before he rose out of the
horizon, and that daily undergone by himself during his life-
time.
The rite of preparing the dead king's body for burial was
therefore as nearly as possible a replica of the daily ceremonial
toilet of the living king in the House of the Morning, a per-
formance derived, as we have seen, from that supposed to be
daily undergone by the sun-god at dawn, and actually daily
undergone by his cultus-image at the hands of his high priest.
Accordingly the name, House of the Morning, seems occasion-
ally to have been applied to the place in which the royal
corpse was made ready for the tomb.
The gods who were associated with the washing of the king
when alive were also associated with his posthumous washing —
namely, Horus and Thoth, or Horus and Seth, or the four gods,
Horus, Seth, Thoth and Sepa, or just Horus by himself,
without a companion god. Moreover other divinities connected
with the sun-cult are said to wash the dead king — namely, Shu
and Tefenwet, who having been spat out of the sun-god's
mouth were associated with water ; Kebhowet, who, as stated
above, washed the sun-god ; the Worshippers of Horus ; and
lastly, the four gods who presided over the Pool of Kenset.
These lustrator-divinities, who figured at the washing of the
dead king in the funerary House of the Morning, were im-
personated by human officials, as was the case at the washing
of the living king in the temple House of the Morning.
It should be noted that a passage in the Pyramid Texts,
describing the washing of the dead king by Horus and Seth
in the presence of Atum, speaks of him not only as being born
and conceived and as coming into being and growing tall, but
as being Atum's son. The dead king was therefore thought
both to be regenerated and also at the same time to be affiliated
to the sun-god, through the medium of the sacred water, which,
be it observed, was identified not only with Nun, the primeval
ocean, but also with the seed of the sun-god. (See Proceedings
20
REPORT
of flic Society of Biblical Arthaology, vol. xl., p. 89 ; Chassinat,
Mammisi cTEdfou, p. 69, pi. xx., text behind Horus.)
Through being thus washed the dead (like the living) king was
thought to acquire the qualities and characteristics of the sun-god.
The dead king was supposed to be washed and reborn not
only once but daily, as was his divine prototype. A rite,
therefore, based upon that of the House of the Morning was
daily performed in the chapel attached to the royal tomb, this
rite being incorporated into the much older funerary banquet.
A libation, however, was substituted for the lustral washing
of the corpse, which lay inaccessible in the burial vault.
In order to ensure the daily rebirth of the dead king, it was
probably regarded as necessary that his corpse should be
intact ; hence, possibly, arose the custom of embalming it. But
since the early mummies were extremely perishable and un-
lifelike in appearance, it was thought desirable to supply the
deceased with a new body, more durable and realistic than the
corpse — namely, a portrait statue.
To identify the statue with the king's body a rite was per-
formed called the Opening of the Mouth, which, apart from
certain episodes peculiar to itself, was, like the preparation of
the body for burial and the daily liturgy in the tomb-chapel,
derived from the Rite of the House of the Morning ; indeed,
the name House of the Morning could be assigned to the place
in which the Opening of the Mouth was performed.
Owing in the first instance to the identification of certain
local divinities with the Heliopolitan sun-god, the daily service
performed on behalf of all Egyptian divinities in historic times
was based upon that performed in the Heliopolitan sun-temple.
Thus all five rites — viz. the daily temple liturgy, the cere-
monial toilet in the House of the Morning, the preparation of
the dead king's body for burial, the daily funerary liturgy, and
the Opening of the Mouth — closely resemble one another in
their main features. These features are a lustral washing, with
which are closely associated the burning of incense and the
offering of balls of natron. This initial purification was followed
by the robing and anointing of the object of the rite, the
REPORT 21
arraying of him (or her) in ornaments and the investing of
him (or her) with royal insignia. The proceedings terminated,
probably in all cases, with the serving up of a repast. In the
case of the daily funerary liturgy the acts above described
were simulated, as the cultus-object was inaccessible.1
The Fifth Meeting of the Society was held at the University,
in the afternoon of Tuesday, May I3th, 1919, the President
in the chair. Mr. T. Eric Peet delivered an address on "New
Light on Ancient Mining in Sinai." The lecturer had addressed
the Society on the subject of Sinai and its mines some five
years previously, but in 1914 he had had the opportunity of
working over with Dr. A. H. Gardiner, for purposes of publica-
tion, the inscriptions found in Sinai by Professor Petrie's ex-
pedition in 1906. The present lecture was an attempt to show
to what extent the translation and study of the inscriptions
(hitherto not fully studied) enabled us to fill out or to modify
our previous views on the subject.
The lecturer said that the Egyptian records as far back as
the First Dynasty show mining expeditions to the peninsula
of Sinai, in search of Mefkat (Mfk3t). There had been a con-
troversy as to what Mefkat might be. The lecturer gave a
sketch of this, concluding that it was apparently turquoise but
might also include other minerals of a light blue colour.
The turquoise of Sinai deteriorates very rapidly when exposed
to the light. It was probable that the Egyptians used it chiefly
as a colouring matter for their glazes and paints, after crushing
it down. Nevertheless a certain amount of Sinaitic turquoise
is still sold yearly as a gem. Turquoise is found in bead form
in prehistoric graves, but not commonly. Sneferu, the last
king of the Third I)ynasty, was a most energetic miner in
Sinai, and was specially venerated there down to late times.
In connection with this question of the object of the mining, it
1 The above statements are based on the following articles :— " Lustrations
and the Ileliopolitan Sun-God," in Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archeology,
vol. xl., pp. 57-66, 86-91; "Some Notes on the Ancient Egyptian Practice of
Washing the Dead," \\\ Journal of Egyptian Archeology, vol. v., pp. 117-124 ; "The
House of the Morning," in op. cit. , pp. 148-165; see also Recueil de Tnivaux,
vol. xxxix., pp. 44-78.
22 REPORT
is interesting to note the story of how this king was rowed
in the royal barge by twenty beautiful maidens. One dropped
her hair ornament into the water. The king promised her a
new one, but she replied : " But I want my own, it was of
mfk3t rn3t" — i.e. new turquoise. The commentators on this
text have generally been puzzled over this expression, and
considering it a scribe's error have substituted the word m3't,
maat, true or real, for m^t, new. This correction is unnecessary,
in view of the known deterioration of the Sinai turquoise, and
the girl's remark may be taken as a strengthening of the view
that turquoise was the substance for which Sneferu mined, and
that it was not always crushed down. In the famous bracelets
from the tomb of Zer, of the First Dynasty, turquoise is freely
used as a gem. From later periods there are no certain
examples in existence. Monsieur Vernier, the expert who
compiled the Cairo catalogue of jewellery, states in every later
case, even that of the Dahshur jewellery of ttye Twelfth
Dynasty, that he is uncertain whether the turquoise is natural
or artificial, made of ground turquoise and glass-moulded.1
With regard to copper it is certain that it was mined in
Sinai in early times, though it is impossible to say whether the
miners were Egyptian. Only one inscription out of over three
hundred mentions copper.
It is not certainly known what name the Egyptians gave to
the country. On a stele in the British Museum, Bia is given
as a source of turquoise and may be therefore the name of
Sinai. The word Bia occurs in several of the Sinai inscrip-
tions, but it has hitherto received a more general translation,
" mountain country," or " mining district."
In the story of the shipwrecked sailor the hero begins his tale
with the words : " I went down to Bia for [or " of"] my lord," which
makes it appear that it was a place approached by sea (a usual
route to Sinai). The letter from King Pepi II. to the noble
Harkhuf, who brought him a dwarf, states that "his majesty
desires to see this dwarf more than the gifts of Bia and of Punt."
1 Probably, therefore, the same doubt hangs over the turquoise in the jewellery
from Riqqeh, now in the Manchester Museum.
REPORT 23
The deities chiefly worshipped by the Egyptians in Sinai
were Hathor, the goddess of the Temple at Serabit — the
Lady of Turquoise ; Thoth, god of cooling streams, traces of
whose worship are found earlier than that of Hathor ; Sopdu,
lord of the East. The occurrence of Sopdu in Sinai- has
generally been attributed to the fact that he was the god of
that part of the Delta through which one passed on the way to
Sinai. Gardiner has lately shown that the connection may be
closer than this. He proves that the Delta town Pi-Sopdu (a
seat of Sopdu worship) is identical with the town whose name
has for long been (wrongly) rendered Goshen or Geshem, and
should be Shesem. Now shesemt is the name of a very
ornate apron worn by Sopdu, and shesemt is also the name of
a mineral mentioned in the inscriptions of Sinai as having been
found there. It may therefore be that the town of Sheshem
(old Goshen) derives its name from Sopdu, Lord of the Shesemt-
Land (Sinai). This, however, is in the region of conjecture.
King Sneferu also was worshipped at Sinai. Petrie's theory
was that the Egyptians in Sinai followed the native (Semitic)
manner of worship and gave to the local goddess (possibly
Ishtar) the name of their goddess Hathor. He considered that
all the ritual that can be traced is Semitic. He instances
specially (i) steles ; (2) burnt sacrifices; (3) ablutions. The
lecturer differed from Petrie as to the conclusions to be drawn
from these instances.
(i) As to the steles. They are nearly all surrounded by
rough rings of stones piled upon the ground. Other rings
or rectangular arrangements of stone are found without
steles. Often an irregular slab of sandstone is set upright
propped by other stones. Rectangular groups of such stones
are found. Petrie calls these upright stones Bethels — i.e.
stones set up to commemorate dreams. The enclosures, he
thinks, were sleeping-places. The miner would implore the
goddess Hathor to aid him by revealing in a dream the locality
of the turquoise. He would pass the night on the hill-side near
the temple, and if the wished-for dream came, would raise, as
did Jacob, a stone, as a memorial, or would have an inscribed
24 . REPORT
stele set up. Mr. Feet remarked that the great drawback to
this theory was the fact that though revelation by dreams was
common in Egypt, not a single inscription on these stones has
any reference to a dream or any thanks to Hathor for aid in
finding turquoise. Nearly all the inscriptions commemorate
the various expeditions to Sinai : others are of a more private
nature, recording that such and such an official had been
present in such and such a year.
These steles were generally inscribed on all four sides. This,
says Petrie, " is rare in Egypt, where steles are, as a rule,
funerary, though sometimes religious and placed in temples ;
none are known as monuments of devotion in a place which
is neither a temple nor a tomb." Obelisks, however, Mr. Peet
points out, were used in Egypt in the latter case, and these are
inscribed on all four sides.
(2) Burnt sacrifices. Underneath the later temple of Hathor
Petrie found a great bed of ashes — amounting to about 50 tons
and at least 100 x 50 feet in area. His solution is that this is
the remains of burnt sacrifices before the entrance to the older
sacred place. Burnt sacrifices on high places, he adds, are
quite un-Egyptian, and very few instances of burnt offerings
at all are known in Egypt, with the exception of incense, and
those few instances are evidently due to foreign influence. The
lecturer considered that the attribution of these ash heaps to
burnt sacrifice was purely hypothetical, and that, even supposing
it to be correct, burnt sacrifice was by no means unknown in
Egypt, where there was actually a phrase (sbt-n-sdt) meaning
" burnt sacrifice."
Finally, as to ablutions. This, said Mr. Peet, was absolutely
Egyptian. Tanks have been found at Zawyet el Aryan, the
Osireion at Abydos and elsewhere.
Members who heard Mr. Blackmail's address in March will
have fresh in their minds the important part played by ceremonial
washings in the daily ritual of the temples.
It seemed then, to Mr. Peet, that the Semitic character of
the worship at Sinai was far from proved.
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Plan showing normal order of episodes on walls of Abydos chapels
M. stands for Marietta, tableau
THE SEQUENCE OF THE EPISODES IN
THE EGYPTIAN DAILY TEMPLE
LITURGY
BY AYLWARD M. BLACKMAN,
THIS question has been treated of in some detail by von Lemm
in Das Ritualbuch des Ammondienstes, and has also been touched
upon by Erman in A Handbook of Egyptian Religion (English
trans., pp. 45 foil.), but it has received most attention at the
hands of Moret in his very learned work entitled Le rituel du
culte divinjournalier en Egypte. This consists of a transcription
into hieroglyphic of the Berlin hieratic papyrus No. 305 5, T the
so-called Ritual for Amun, and -an accompanying translation
and commentary. With several of Monsieur Moret's conclusions
I do not find myself in agreement. I cannot, for example, accept
his theory that there was a twofold performance of the pre-
toilet section of the daily temple liturgy.2 Furthermore, despite
its position in the Ritual for Amun, I believe him to be mistaken
in associating the pouring out of sand with the replacement of
the statue in the shrine 3 and also in regarding what appear as
the last seven episodes in that Ritiial as " final purifications." 4
On the contrary, I maintain that the pouring out of the sand was
one of the last of the pre-toilet episodes, and that six of these
" final purifications," as also the episode immediately preceding
them, belong to quite the beginning of the toilet, having been
placed at the end of this version of the temple service-book by
a scribe utterly ignorant or heedless of their real purport.
I have pointed out in two recent articles5 that the preparation
of the dead Egyptian king's body for burial, the Opening of the
1 See below, p. 31 with footnote 20.
- Moret, op. cit., pp. 102 foil.
3 Op. cit., pp. 200 foil.
4 Op. cit., pp. 203 foil.
:> Journal of Egyptian Archicology, v., pp. 118-124, 148-165.
27
28 AYLWARD M. BLACKMAN
Mouth and the daily funerary liturgy were all based upon the
ceremonial toilet of the Heliopolitan king, performed daily at
dawn in the so-called House of the Morning (pr-dw$t\ an adjunct
of the Heliopolitan palace and sun-temple, before he entered
that temple to officiate as high priest. This toilet was in its
turn based upon the lustration which the sun-god, of whom the
Heliopolitan king was the embodiment, was supposed daily to
undergo before he appeared above the eastern horizon.
The ceremonial toilet of the ancient Heliopolitan kings is
probably preserved in what is nearest to its original form in
the closely related Opening of the Mouth, a rite performed in
the first instance on behalf of the dead king's statue.6 The
following is a list of what we might call the toilet episodes of
the Opening of the Mouth,7 in the order of their occurrence :—
1. Placing the statue upon a mound of sand with its face to the south.8
2. Preliminary censing of the statue.9
3. Sprinkling of the statue with the water of the four nmst- vessels.
4. Sprinkling of the statue with the water of the four atfr/-vessels.
5. Presentation to the statue of five balls of Upper Egyptian natron of El-Kab
for the purification of its mouth.
6. Presentation to the statue of five balls of Lower Egyptian natron of
Wadi-en-Natrfin for the same purpose.
7. Presentation to the statue of five balls of incense.
8. Fumigation of the statue with burning incense.
After a number of episodes peculiar to the Opening of the
Mouth the toilet was resumed.
9. Arraying the statue in the white head-cloth called nms.
The statue was now wrapped in, or possibly just presented
with, five different coloured cloths. These cloths doubtless
represent the various articles of apparel in which the ancient
king was arrayed in the House of the Morning.
10. Arraying the statue in the 5z'jZ£>-cloth J£=3A <£\ \
\ rr&. 0 / *
11. Arraying the statue in the white cloth (mnht hdt}.
12. Arraying the statue in the green cloth (mnht iv^dt}.
6 Op. cit., pp. 158 foil.
7 Budge, Book of Opening the Mouth t ii., pp. i-ii, 40-65; Schiaparelli, Libra
dei Funerali, i., pp. 22-49; ii., pp. 9-79.
8 See below, pp. 34 foil.
9 According to the version on the coffin of Bivthj-imn (Budge, op. «'/., ii., p. 2 ;
Schiaparelli, op. cit., i., p. 28), and the papyrus of St3-wd (Annales du Service, xiii.,
P- 259).
EPISODES IN THE EGYPTIAN DAILY TEMPLE LITURGY 29
13. Arraying the statue in the red cloth (itinht ins).
14. Arraying the statue in the great cloth (tnnht ':?/) or dark red cloth (mnht idmi).
15. Arraying the statue in the broad collar (wsh).
1 6. Anointing the statue with unguent (tndt).
17. Painting the statue's eyelids with green cosmetic.
1 8. Painting the statue's eyelids with black cosmetic (msdnit).
The statue was now presented with various insignia.
19. Presentation of the sceptre called 3ms.
20. Presentation, according to the BwthS-imn version, of the sceptre called hb,
according to the other versions, of the pear-shaped mace called hd.
21. Presentation of the flat-topped mace called muw.w
22. 23. Final censing of the statue, first by the Sem priest and then by the
" courtiers."
That this must have been the original order of the episodes
in the ceremonial toilet of the Predynastic king of Heliopolis is
shown by the representations we possess of the Rite of the House
of the Morning11 and also by the inscriptions accompanying
these representations12 or occurring independently of them.13
From them we learn that the king was sprinkled with holy
water and his mouth purified with natron, and that either before
or after this mouth-purification he was fumigated with burning
incense. Then the rest of his toilet was performed — i.e. he was
robed (probably also anointed, etc.), crowned, and invested
with various insignia.
None of the representations of the Rite of the House of the
Morning now preserved in any completeness are earlier than
the Eighteenth Dynasty, when the rite was just a purification
undergone by the Pharaoh before he officiated in any temple.
It was naturally at that period not the long and elaborate
performance of early times, when it was the king's actual daily
morning toilet as well as an important religious ceremony ;
indeed many of the episodes performed at length anciently seem
later to have been omitted or merely simulated or hinted at.14
In the preparation of the dead king's body for burial, a rite
which, as already stated, is based upon that of the House of the
10 See Mace-Winlock, The Tomb of Senebtisi, pp. 102 foil.
11 Kees, Rectieil de Travaux, xxxvi., pp. 7 foil. For other references See Pro-
ceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, vol. xl. , p. 87., footnote 91.
12 Kees, op. cit. , loc. cit.
13 Journal of Egyptian Archeology, v. , p. 148.
14 On this point see Kees, op. cit., xxxvi., pp. 10 foil.
3o AYLWARD M. BLACKMAN
Morning, the washing of the corpse15 preceded the wrapping of
it and the simultaneous smearing of both it and the bandages
with gums and unguents,16 which two last processes correspond
to the clothing and anointing of the living king in his daily
ceremonial toilet.
Again in the daily funerary liturgy episodes simulating the
washing of the king and the purification of his mouth with
natron 17 were enacted before the offering of the ceremonial
garments, royal insignia, unguents and cosmetics.18 As I have
shown in a previous article,19 a large part of the daily temple
liturgy bears a close resemblance to the Rite of the House of
the Morning. I there pointed out that the reason for this
resemblance is that both rites imitate the same performance, the
supposed daily matutinal lustration of the sun-god — the cultus-
image of the god undergoing lustration every day at dawn, as
the god himself was said to do. That the other toilet episodes
of the Rite of the House of the Morning — robing, anointing,
crowning, etc. — had their equivalents in the daily temple liturgy
is due to the fact that the god was regarded as a king, indeed
as the prototype of all the Heliopolitan kings. Accordingly
the ideas about the god and the king and the ceremonies per-
formed on their behalf acted and reacted on one another.
In the great temple of Sethos 1st at Abydos the walls of the
chapels of Horsiese, Isis, Osiris-Onnophris, Amun, Atum and
Ptah are adorned with a series of reliefs representing the daily
temple liturgy being performed. Accompanying each relief is
the formula recited by the priest while the particular episode
depicted was being enacted. Except for an occasional omission
due to lack of space, the same episodes are depicted in all six
chapels, and, with trifling varieties, they follow one another in
the same order. The various versions of the accompanying
15 The representations of the washing of the corpse are practically identical with
those of the washing of the living king in the House of the Morning ; see Journal
of Egyptian Archeology, v., pp. 118, 123 foil., 157 foil.
16 Herodotos, ii. 68 ; Roeder, Urkunden zur Religion des alien Agypten, p. 300.
17 Sethe, Die aliagyptischen Pyramidentexte (hereafter cited as Pyr.}, 2222-2227.
18 Pyr., 2241-2255.
^Journal of Egyptian Archeology, v., p. 162 ; see also my forthcoming article,
" Osirian Lustrations " (under "Summary of Article I ") in Recueilde Travaux, xxxix.
EPISODES IN THE EGYPTIAN DAILY TEMPLE LITURGY 31
formulae likewise present very few and quite unimportant
divergences. We thus possess what amounts to a complete and
fully illustrated version of the daily temple liturgy as performed
at Abydos during the New Kingdom.
The six versions of the formulae and of the representations
which they accompany are published by Mariette in his Abydos,
i., pp. 34-76.
Another version of the daily temple liturgy, that celebrated
on behalf of Amun of Karnak, is preserved to us in papyrus
No. 3055 of the Berlin Museum.20 This MS., which dates from
the Twenty-Second Dynasty, is a collection of the formulae
pronounced during the enactment of the various episodes of
the daily temple liturgy. The title of each formula, " Utterance
for such and such an act," clearly shows to what episode it
belongs. For the sake of brevity I shall, when referring to this
composition, speak of it as the Karnak liturgy.
It should here be noted that the Abydos and Karnak
liturgies are merely different editions of the same service-book.
Thus the formulae for the toilet episodes are practically
identical in both cases ; also when the pre-toilet episodes of
the one edition correspond with those of the other edition, the
accompanying formulae are often either the same or have points
in common.
As we have seen, the toilet episodes occur in the same order
in the rites derived from the Rite of the House of the Morning
as in that rite itself. We should accordingly expect to find
them in the same order in the closely related daily temple
liturgy. It is therefore somewhat disconcerting to find, accord-
ing to Mariette, op. cit., p. 18, that after a prefatory anointing
of the cultus-image (see below, pp. 43, 52) and the taking off of
its clothing of the previous day (Mariette, op. cit., tab. 9), the
officiant arrayed it in the white head-cloth (Mar., tab. 10 =
Opening of the Mouth, episode 9) and then in the great cloth
(Mar. tab. 11= Opening of the Mouth, episode 14). Having
anointed the image with unguent (Mar., tab. 12 = Opening of
20 Hier attache Papyrus aus den koniglichen Museen z^i Berlin, i., Ritualefiir den
Kiiltus des Amon und fur den Kulttis der Mut ; Moret, Rituel du culte divin
journalier en Egypte.
32 AYLWARD M. BLACKMAN
the Mouth, episode 16), decked it with various ornaments, and
presented it with royal insignia (Mar., tab. 13-16 = Opening
of the Mouth, episodes 15, 19-21), the officiant proceeded to
clothe it in red, green and white cloths successively (Mar., tab.
17-19), whereas, according to the Opening of the Mouth, and
also the Karnak liturgy, the order is white, green and red
(Opening of the Mouth, episodes 11-13). After various
performances, breaking the clay seal, drawing back the bolts
of the sanctuary door, opening the door, seeing the god, etc.
(Mar., tab. 21 foil.), performances which one would have
expected to occur at the beginning of the service, as indeed
they do in the Karnak liturgy, the officiant concluded the god's
toilet and the liturgy by sprinkling the cultus-image with water,
purifying it with natron and fumigating it with incense (Mar.,
tab. 32-36), though these last-named episodes in all the other
related rites were enacted at the beginning of the toilet.
It looks, therefore, as if Mariette, in drawing up his list of
episodes, had begun at the wrong place on the walls.
The sketch plan on plate shows what I presume to be the
normal order of the episodes on the walls of the Abydos
chapels. This order is based upon Mariette's numbering of the
episodes, his statement in Abydos, i., p. 57 top, and upon the
photographs on pis. XVI. -XXI 1 1., of Capart's Le Temple de
Seti I", especially those on pis. XVI., XXII. and XXIII. On
constructional grounds 21 the arrangement of the episodes in the
chapel of Osiris is not the normal one. It is unfortunate for
our purpose, therefore, that it is only in the case of this chapel
that Capart gives views of the whole of the north and south
walls. In the case of the chapel of Amun he only publishes
views of the west wall and west end of the north and south
walls. In the latter chapel22 the whole of the west half of the
upper register on the north wall is occupied by episode 6 23
(Mar., tab. 26), so that episodes 7 and 8 (Mar., tab. 27, 28)
have to be depicted on the north and south sides of the false
21 See Mar., op. cit., i. 18.
22 See Capart, op. «/., pis. XXII., XXIII.
23 I.e. 6 according to my numbering of the episodes in the plan and on pp. 34, 48.
EPISODES IN THE EGYPTIAN DAILY TEMPLE LITURGY
33
door respectively.'24 But in another chapel, that of Osiris, an
episode is inserted between No. 6 and the west wall.25 Accord-
ingly we may assume that the normal arrangement of episodes
7-9 is that of my plan. That episodes 18 and 22 (Mar., tab. 10
and 1 1 respectively) are depicted in the lower register on either
side of the false door appears from Capart, op. cit.t pi. XVI., as
well as from Mariette's numbering of them.
According to what seems to be the normal arrangement in
the chapels — i.e. that adopted in my plan — Mariette's tab. 1-9
occupy the lower register on the east wall north of the door and
on the north wall ; tab. 10 and 11 the lower register on either
side of the false door in the west wall ; and tab. 12-20 the lower
register on the south wall and east wall south of the door.
Again, tab. 21-36 beginning in the upper register on the east
wall north of the door and continuing along the north, west
and south walls, end up on the east wall south of the door.
I would suggest that we begin with the scene in the top
instead of in the bottom register of the east wall north of the
door, and then follow this register round the room to where it ends
on the east wall south of the door. We shall then find that as
far as this register takes us the toilet episodes follow one another
in practically the same order as they do in the four related
rites. We shall also see later that the Abydos liturgy closely
corresponds with the Karnak liturgy as regards the order of
the pre-toilet episodes.
The episodes occupying the upper register, beginning, as
suggested, with the one depicted at the north end of the east
wall, are as follows : —
Episodes
Mariette's
** tableaux**
Wall Titles of the accompanying formula
i
21
East (north end) Utterance for breaking the clay seal.*"
2
22
North Utterance for drawing back the bolt.
3
23
,, Utterance for opening the two doors, f
4
24
,, Utterance for seeing the god.
5
25
,, Utterance for kissing the ground, placing
oneself upon the belly to touch the
ground with one's (///. his) fingers when
entering in upon the god.
24 Op.
«V.,pl. XVI.
25 Op.
«V., pi. XIX.
D
34 AYLWARD M. BLACKMAN
Episodes t^eax" WaU Titks °^ the accomPanyin?f°rmu'l(E
6 26 North Offering incense in front (of the god) with
a censer.
7 27 .,, Adoring the god four times, offering in-
cense when entering the palace (stp-s3).
8 28 West (north side Adoring the goddess £ four times.
of false door)
9 29 West (south side Making purification with incense upon
of false door) the fire, encircling four times.
10 30 South Performing the pouring out of sand.
11 31 ,, Making purification with incense upon
the fire, encircling four times.
12, 13 32 ,, Making purification with a '-vessel of
cool water, with four balls of incense.
14 33 ,, Making purification with four balls of
Lower Egyptian natron of Wady en-
Natrun.
15 34 ,, Making purification with four balls of
Upper Egyptian natron of El-Kab.
16 35 ,, Making purification with four balls of
^-natron.
17 36 East (south end) Offering incense on the fire, encircling
four times.
* I.e. the clay seal affixed to the bolts of the sanctuary or shrine doors (see
Piankhi stele , lines 104 foil. ; von.Lemm, Das Rituallmchdes Ammondienstes, pp. 25
foil. ).
t I.e. the double doors of the sanctuary or shrine (see below, p. 51, footnote 42).
£ I.e. Rlytt the female counterpart of the sun-god and identified with Hathor
(see below, p. 52).
It will be seen at once that the episodes 10-17 of the Abydos
liturgy, according to my numbering of them, closely correspond
to Nos. 1-8 of the toilet episodes in the Opening of the Mouth.
In the last-mentioned rite, before the commencement of the
actual toilet, the officiant placed the statue 'upon a mound of
sand, generally depicted as an oval coloured pink with red
spots.26 In his tomb-chapel at Thebes the dead Sennofre is
depicted standing upon a little mound of sand27 while four
lustrators pour water over him. The mound in this case is not
in the form of an oval, but of the two-hills sign (£=£))> which,
combined with 0, constitutes the symbol for the horizon. The
scene in question depicts, not an episode in the Opening of the
26 Davies-Gardiner, Tomb of Amenemhet, p. 58 ; Budge, Book of Opening the
Moiith, i., p. 15.
27 Virey, Recueil de Travaux, xxii., p. 91.
EPISODES IN THE EGYPTIAN DAILY TEMPLE LITURGY 35
Mouth, but the washing of the corpse during embalmment. I
have suggested in my forthcoming article " Osirian Lustrations,"
referred to above, on p. 30, footnote 19, that Sennofre is here
represented as emerging, like the sun-god, reborn from the
horizon as the result of undergoing lustration. As we have
seen, the lustral washing of the statue in the Opening of the
Mouth imitates the same performance as the washing of the
corpse during embalmment — viz. the daily matutinal ablutions
of the sun-god. Possibly, therefore, the oval-shaped mound of
sand, no less than the (v^-shaped one, typifies the eastern hills,
above which the Egyptians saw the sun rise every morning. If
so, it was very appropriate both in the Opening of the Mouth
and in the daily temple liturgy for the cultus-object to be
placed on a little pile of sand before the lustration took place.
Anyhow, in view of its position therein, it can hardly be doubted
that the " pouring out of sand " in the Abydos liturgy represents
the same ritual act as the placing of the statue upon a mound
of sand in the Opening of the Mouth.
The few differences between Abydos episodes 11-17 and
Nos. 2-8 of the toilet episodes in the Opening of the Mouth
are as follows : —
In the Abydos liturgy one '-vessel of water was employed
for the washing of the cultus-image instead of the four nmst-
and four ^/r/-vessels used in the Rite of Opening the Mouth.
In the Abydos liturgy the image, after the lustration, was fumi-
gated with burning incense ; in the Opening of the Mouth this
act was omitted. In this last-mentioned rite the purification
with natron of Upper Egypt preceded (rightly) the purifica-
tion with that of Lower Egypt ; in the Abydos liturgy the
order is reversed. Finally in the Opening of the Mouth, after
the purification with the above-mentioned varieties of natron,
the statue was presented with five balls of incense, whereas
in the Abydos liturgy four balls of /7^-natron are substituted
for the incense.
Now for the episodes of the Abydos liturgy depicted in the
lower register of scenes. A number of questions arise in
connection with the sequence of the episodes in this register,.
36 AYLWARD M. BLACKMAN
and until they have been dealt with the list cannot be
continued.
In the first place, are we to return to the north side of the
chapel and begin, as in the case of the upper register, with the
scene on the east wall north of the entrance? According to
o
the Opening of the Mouth, the next five episodes consist in the
arraying of the statue in the white head-cloth nms, the si3w-
cloth, and the white, green, red and dark red or great cloths.
In the Abydos chapels the reliefs depicting the arraying of
the cultus-image in the white, green and red cloths are on the
eastern half of the south wall (Mar., tab. 19, 18, 17), the first
of the series (tab. 19) being at the extreme east end of the
wall. Evidently, therefore, the starting-point of the episodes
in the lower register is somewhere near the south-east corner
of each room, just below where we came to the end of the
scenes in the upper register. We should expect the clothing
of the statue in the white head-cloth and sz3w-c\oth to precede
the clothing of it in the other above-mentioned cloths, as is the
case in the Opening of the Mouth, and thus to be depicted on
the east wall south of the entrance.
As a matter of fact, however, the episode of the stew-cloth
occurs neither in the Abydos nor in the Karnak liturgy.
Furthermore, the lower register on the east wall south of the
door is occupied with a representation (28), not, as one would
expect, of the arraying of the cultus-image in the white head-
cloth, but of the removal by the officiant of his footprints on
the floor, which act, being closely associated with his departure
from the sanctuary,28 was depicted beside the door on the south
side (see below, p. 45). Thus the putting on of the white head-
cloth had to be depicted elsewhere, and the place which the
sculptor thought best suited to the dimensions of the scene
and the not very long accompanying formula was the lower
register on the north side of the false door (west wall).
The order of the first three episodes in the lower register
of the south wall — viz. the clothing of the cultus-image in
28 See Blackman, Rock Tombs of Meir, i., p. 27 with footnote 4 ; ii., p. I7a , pp.
20 and 21 with footnote I ; see also Davies-Gardiner, Tomb of Ainenemhet, pp. 93
foil.
EPISODES IN THE EGYPTIAN DAILY TEMPLE LITURGY 37
the white, green and red cloths successively (19-21= Mar.,
tab. 19, 1 8, 17) — is, as already pointed out, the same as in the
Opening of the Mouth and also as in the Karnak liturgy (see
below, p. 50).
The next episode should, according to the Opening of the
Mouth, be the clothing of the cultus-image in the dark red or
great cloth. The Karnak liturgy also makes this episode
follow immediately after the putting on of the red cloth. But
in the Abydos chapels the episode depicted next to the clothing
of the cultus-image in the red cloth is the decking of it with the
broad collar (ws/i\ which last-named episode /ot/ozvs the putting
on of the dark red or great cloth in the Opening of the Mouth.
In apparently all the Abydos chapels except that of Osiris29
the putting on of the dark red or great cloth is depicted on
the west wall south of the false door (see plate).
Possibly this misplacement is due to the sculptor regarding
the scene as better suited than any other to the narrow space
on the south side of the false door. If it had been put in its
proper place next to 21, and the other scenes had followed in
due order, the narrow space on the west wall would have been
occupied by episode 27 ( = Mar., tab. 12), an impossible arrange-
ment, as the accompanying formula consists of twenty lines of
text.30
In the actual performance of the Abydos liturgy, however,
the sequence of episodes was no doubt the same as in the
Karnak liturgy and in the Opening of the Mouth. Therefore,
despite its position, the clothing of the statue in the dark red
cloth should appear in the list as episode 22, the putting on of
the broad collar being numbered 23.
According to the reliefs in the Abydos chapels, the priest
now presented the statue with the counterpoise (m'nhf] 31 of the
broad collar, and an object called sspt, which is conventionally
represented ft and probably has some connection with the
collar. This episode (Mar., tab. 15) does not occur in the
29 See Mariette, Abydos, i. , p. 44 ; Capart, l^emple de Seti, ler, pi. XX.
30 See Capart,.*/. «/., pi. XXIII.
31 See Mace-Winlock, Tomb of Senebtisi, p. 46, footnote 5.
38 AYLWARD M. BLACKMAN
Opening of the Mouth or in the Karnak liturgy, but in view
of the nature of certainly one of the objects the place assigned
it is the natural one.
The priest next placed the two plumes on the head of the
cultus-image (Mar., tab. 14) — there is no corresponding episode
in the Opening of the Mouth or the Karnak liturgy — and then
adorned it with bracelets and anklets, and invested it with the
W)S-sia.ff, crook and whip (Mar., tab. 13). The priest now
anointed the cultus-image with ointment (Mar., tab. 12). There
is no putting on of bracelets and anklets either in the Opening
of the Mouth or in the Karnak liturgy. In the former of these
two rites the anointing of the statue took place immediately
after the arraying of it in the broad collar and before the
investing of it with royal insignia p;;w-sceptre, pear-shaped
mace and flat-topped mace). In the Abydos chapels, owing
to the lack of space, the decking of the statue with the last
article of body adornment and the investing of it with the
royal insignia had to be combined in one episode, and this
episode had to precede the anointing, for otherwise the
sequence of the episodes devoted to the putting on of the body
ornaments would have been interrupted.
In the Opening of the Mouth the anointing of the statue was
immediately followed by the painting of its eyelids first with
green and then with black cosmetic, and these episodes follow
one another in the same order in the Karnak liturgy. In the
Abydos chapels, doubtless owing to lack of space, the painting
of the eyelids is not depicted.
The last episode of all in the Abydos liturgy was the removal
of the footprints (Mar., tab. 20), which is depicted, for the
reason stated above, p. 36,32 on the south side of the chapel,
beside the entrance.
As a result of this discussion we are now able to fix with
some certainty the sequence of those episodes of the Abydos
liturgy that are depicted in the lower register on the east wall
south of the door, and on the south and west walls, and so
continue our interrupted list.
32 See also below, p. 45.
EPISODES IN THE EGYPTIAN DAILY TEMPLE LITURGY 39
Episode "tableau*" ^Val1 Titles of the accompanying formula
1 8 10 West (north of Utterance for adorning (sm'r) the body
false door) with the nms.
19 19 South Utterance for putting on the white cloth.
20 18 ,, Utterance for putting on the green cloth.
21 17 ,, Utterance for putting on the red cloth.
22 II West (south of Utterance for putting on the great cloth
false door) after these.
23 1 6 South Utterance for giving the broad collar.
24 15 ,, Giving the sspt and counterpoise.
25 14 ,, Utterance for fixing the two plumes on the
head.
26 13 ,, Utterance for giving the ^jj-sceptre, crook,
whip, bracelets and anklets.
27 12 ,, Utterance for presenting the unguent.
2$ 20 East wall Utterance for removing the foot(-prints)
(south end) with the (brush of) //?^-plant.
I have not yet discussed the scenes in the lower register on
the north wall and east wall north of the entrance, Mariette's
tab. 1-9. Before doing so I propose to deal with the pre-toilet
episodes of the Karnak liturgy.
The sequence of the episodes in the Karnak liturgy, according
to the Berlin papyrus No. 3055, is as follows ; when there are
alternative formulae for one episode they are marked a, b, etc. :
KARNAK LITURGY
Episodes
i
3
4
5
6
Titles of the accompanying formula
Utterance for lighting the fire.
Utterance for taking the censer.
Utterance for placing the brazier on the censer.
Utterance for putting incense on the fire.
a. Utterance for advancing to the holy place (bw dsr).
b. Another utterance.
a. Utterance for breaking the net sic (tfdt).*
b. Utterance for breaking the clay.
*A* |1
ft is the ordinary word for "net." In the corresponding
formula at Abydos, however, the word is written M 'fev ted, which, judging
I J*P>\ ^
from the determinative ^, means " mud," "clay" (see Brugsch, Worterbi4cht suppl.
p. 169). Possibly the scribe who wrote this copy of the Karnak liturgy, or a previous
copyist, did not know the apparently rare word ttd "mud," and so wrote in its place
i^dt "net," a word with which he was familiar. He would be all the more inclined
to do this for the following reasons. The bolts of the sanctuary or shrine doors (see
below, p. 51, footnote 42) seem often to have been tied with a twist or strip of
40 AYLWARD M. BLACKMAN
Episodes Titles of the accompanying for nntla
7 Utterance for unfastening the shrine.
8 Utterance for uncovering the face.
9 Utterance for seeing the god.
10 a. Utterance for kissing the ground.
b. Utterance for putting (oneself) upon the belly.
c. Utterance for putting (oneself) upon the belly, for stretching
(oneself) out flat.
d. Utterance for kissing the ground prone.
e. Another.
/. Another.
11 a. Utterance for adoring Amun.
b. Another adoration.
12 Utterance for festival perfume (sty-hb] with honey.
13 Utterance for incense.
I. Utterance for entering the temple.
II. a. Utterance for entering the sanctuary (s/im) of the god.
b. Another utterance.
c. Utterance for mounting the stairway.
III. a. Utterance for uncovering the face at festivals.
b. Utterance for uncovering the face.
IV. Utterance for seeing the god.
V. a. Utterance for kissing the ground.
b. Utterance for putting oneself upon the belly.
c. Utterance for putting oneself upon the belly, for stretching one-
self out flat.
d. Utterance for kissing the ground prone.
c. Another.
f. Another.
VI. a. Utterance for incense.
b. Another.
VII. a. Adoration of Amun.
b. Another.
c. Another.
d. Another adoration of Amun.
e. Another adoration of Am6n at dawn.
VIII. Utterance for presenting Me'et.
IX. Utterance for incense to the Ennead.
X. Utterance for laying his (the priest's) hands upon the god.
XI. Utterance for laying hands upon the box in order to perform
the purification.
14 Utterance for purification with four nmst- vessels of water.
papyrus, to which the clay seal was then affixed (see von Lemm, Das Ritualbuch des
AmmondiensteS) p. 27). The scribe may well have considered this twist of papyrus
to represent symbolically a net in which the god, shut up in the sanctuary or shrine,
was caught, and from which he must be released, just as the bolt itself was symboli-
cally regarded as the finger of the murderous Seth thrust into the eye of Horus (cf.
Moret, Rituel du culte divin journalier, pp. 38 foil.). Anyhow, as von Lemm, op.
«'/., p. 25, maintains, formulae 6a and 6b belong to one episode — namely, the loosening
of the seal -affixed to the bolts which fastened the double doors of the sanctuary or
shrine.
EPISODES IN THE EGYPTIAN DAILY TEMPLE LITURGY 41
Episodes Titles of the accompanying fornnilt
15 Making purification with four dsrt- vessels of water.
1 6 Making purification with incense.
17 a. Utterance for the white cloth.
b. Utterance for putting on the cloth.
18 Utterance for putting on the green cloth.
19 Utterance for putting on the red cloth.
20 Utterance for putting on the dark red cloth.
21 a. Utterance for presenting unguent.
b. Utterance for presenting the unguent of the daily offering.
22 Utterance for presenting green eye-cosmetic.
23 Utterance for presenting black eye-cosmetic (insdmt}.
24 Utterance for pouring out sand.
25 Utterance for natron (sniin), encircling four times.
26 Utterance for the '-vessel of natron.
27 Utterance for the '-vessel of incense.
28 Making purification.
29 Utterance for natron (smin}.
30 Utterance for the '-vessel of water.
31 Utterance for incense. •
32 Utterance for fumigation with 'w/j/w-incense.
Except for episodes 1-5 and 12, which are peculiar to it, the
first part of the Karnak liturgy, episodes 1-13, corresponds
pretty closely with the first part of the Abydos liturgy, episodes
1-9. Karnak formulae 6a and 6b are almost certainly utterances
for one episode,33 which is the equivalent of Abydos episode i.
Karnak episode 7 is the same as Abydos episode 2, as the
identity of the respective formulae shows. Karnak episodes
8 and 9 correspond to Abydos episodes 3 and 4, Karnak
episode 10, which possesses six alternative formulae, to Abydos
episode 5, Karnak episode n, with its two variant formulae, to
Abydos episodes/ and 8, and Karnak episode 13 to Abydos 9.34
The next eleven episodes are numbered with Roman, instead
of with Arabic, numerals, for a reason that will appear shortly.
We should expect the toilet episodes to begin at this point
in the Karnak liturgy, as they do in the Abydos liturgy. On
33 See above, p. 40, footnote.
:u It will be observed that at Abydos incense was burnt before and after the
"adoring" of the god and goddess (episodes 6-9). In the corresponding part of the
Karnak rite the preliminary burning of incense was omitted, and between the "ador-
ing" and the subsequent burning of incense (episode 13) was inserted the offering of
scented honey (episode 12). However, the "adoring" is preceded by the burning
of incense in the corresponding part of the alternative version of the Karnak liturgy
and followed by the presentation of the figure of Me'et and a further burning of in-
cense— the figure of Me'et taking the place of the scented honey of the first version.
42 AYLWARD M. BLACKMAN
the contrary, we find that the formula for episode I. is entitled
"Utterance for entering the temple," and that episode II. has
variant formulae, two of which are entitled " Utterance for
entering the sanctuary of the god," and the other " Utterance
for ascending the stairway." Thus these two episodes are to all
intents and purposes repetitions of episode 5. Again, episode
1 1 1., the uncovering by the officiant of the god's face, is equivalent
to 8, and episodes IV. and V., " seeing the god," and " kissing
the ground," to 9 and 10. Finally, the episodes VI. -IX., the
burning of incense, adoration of Amun, offering of a figure
of Me'et, and another burning of incense, are the equivalents
of episodes 11-13.
It looks, therefore, as if we had to do with two separate
versions of the daily temple liturgy — the difference between
them being confined to the pre-toilet episodes, as the fact
that there is only one series of toilet episodes seems to show.
When the same pre-toilet episodes occur, as we have seen they
do, in both versions, their respective formulas are sometimes
identical; thus formula b of episode III. and the formulae of
episodes IV. and V. are the same as those of the corresponding
episodes 8, 9 and 10.
At some time or other it was thought desirable to combine
these two different versions of the pre-toilet episodes. But
instead of completely blending them — namely, by placing the
formulae belonging to the same episodes in both versions next
to one another (of course eliminating duplicates), and at the
same time putting or keeping in their right order the formulae
belonging to episodes peculiar to one of the versions — the
compiler first copied out all the pre-toilet formulae of the one
version and then tacked on to them all the pre-toilet formulae
of the other version, quite regardless of the fact that some of
the latter formulae were merely duplicates. This explanation
of the break in the sequence of events caused by episodes I. -XI.
is, I think, much more satisfactory than that of Moret (pp. cit.,
p. 82), who regards episode I. as just a general sum-up of, or
substitute for, the preceding episodes 6-13, and who maintains
(pp.'dt.) p. 1 02 foil.) that after it, or they, had been enacted, the
EPISODES IN THE EGYPTIAN DAILY TEMPLE LITURGY 43
priest left the sanctuary for a few moments and then, re-entering
it, began the rite all over again.
To return to the Abydos chapels. The following episodes,
also numbered with Roman numerals, are depicted in the
lower register on the east wall (north end) and north wall : —
Episode Meanx" WaU TitleS °f the accomPanyin§ formulce
I. i East (north Utterance for entering in order to uncover
end) the face in the palace (ht-ljt) — i.e.
temple — and the chapels (prw] which
are beside the sanctuary (pr-wr).
II. 2 North Utterance for unfastening the seal.
III. 3 ,, Utterance for incense to the uraeus-goddess.
IV. 4 ,, Utterance for entering the sanctuary (shm).
V. 5 ,, Utterance for entering the Great Place
(i3t-wrt) — i.e. sanctuary.
VI. 6 ,, Utterance for -- ing (dfw] the sanc-
tuary.
VII. 7 ,, „ Utterance for laying hands upon the god.
VIII. 8 ,, Utterance for unfastening (?) the unguent
(sjht mdt).
IX. 9 ,, Utterance for taking off the clothing (sjht
miiht}.
Nos. L, II., IV. and V. are clearly pre-toilet episodes, V. being
merely a variant of IV. The fact that they are placed in
a different register to episodes 1-9, which also precede the
toilet, suggests that at Abydos as at Karnak we have a com-
bination of two versions of the pre-toilet episodes of the temple
liturgy. The suggestion is further supported by certain simi-
larities between the second version of the pre-toilet episodes in
the Karnak liturgy and this particular series of episodes in the
Abydos liturgy.
Thus the title of the formula for Abydos episode I. is similar
to the title of the formula for Karnak episode I., while the
actual formula is a version of formula c for Karnak episode II.35
The title of the formula for Abydos episode IV. is the same
as that of formula a for Karnak episode II., the Iast-name4
formula being itself a version of the formula for Abydos
episode V.3ti
35 See Moret, op. cit., p. 105.
36 Op. tit., p. 93.
44 AYLWARD M. BLACKMAN
At this juncture it should be pointed out that Abydos
episode VII. and Karnak episode X. are identical, as are also
the accompanying formulae. This fact, if my theory that
Abydos episodes I. -IX. come from an alternate version of the
liturgy is correct, suggests that the second series of the Karnak
pre-toilet episodes does not end with episode IX., but either
with X. or XL, the last not occurring in the Abydos chapels.
But there are several points in which the second group of
pre-toilet episodes in the Abydos liturgy does not correspond
with the corresponding group of episodes in the Karnak liturgy.
The formula for Abydos episode II. is the same as the formula
a for Karnak episode 6 — i.e. it occurs among the first series of
the pre-toilet episodes of the Karnak liturgy, where it is entitled
" Utterance for breaking the net, sfc" 37 Abydos episode III., the
offering of incense to the uraeus.-goddess, does not occur in the
second group of pre-toilet episodes in the Karnak liturgy. But
with the version of the formulae belonging to this episode, also
recited while incense was being burnt, begins the second part
of the Opening of the Mouth.38 Is the source of this formula
the daily liturgy performed in the temple of the snake-goddess
Uto ? If so, it comes in the right place both in the Abydos
temple liturgy and in the Opening of the Mouth — viz. at or
near the beginning of a rite or of a fresh series of episodes.
Uto's priest may well have burnt incense and recited this for-
mula when, after opening the door, he proceeded to enter the
sanctuary.
The formula for Abydos episode IV. does not occur among
the alternative formulae for the corresponding Karnak episode
a7 See above, p. 39, footnote *. I have pointed out above, on p. 41, that the
titles of formulae a and b of Karnak episode 6 describe one action, the breaking of
the clay seal. This view is supported by the fact that b occurs as the formula for
Abydos episode I (i.e. was to be recited during the breaking of the seal, according
to the first version of the pre-toilet section of the liturgy) and that a occurs as the
formula for Abydos episode II. (i.e. was to be recited during the breaking of the seal
according to the second version of the pre-toilet section of the liturgy). Yet addi-
tional support for this view is the fact that in the chapel of Amun at Abydos, episode
i with the accompanying formula is omitted from the upper register and takes the
place of episode II. ( = Karnak episode 6 with formula b} in the lower register.
38 Schiaparelli, Libra dei Funerali, ii., pp. 87 foil. ; Budge, Book of Opening the
Month, ii., pp. 66 foil.
EPISODES IN THE EGYPTIAN DAILY TEMPLE LITURGY 45
II. Its title, however, as already stated, and that of formula a
for this particular Karnak episode, are very similar.
Abydos episode VI., which seems to have consisted in the
priest sweeping the sanctuary floor with a folded cloth and
burning incense the while,39 also does not occur among the second
group of pre-toilet episodes in the Karnak liturgy, nor yet do
Abydos episodes VIII. and IX.
There was good reason for placing these episodes from the
second version of the pre-toilet section of the Abydos liturgy
in the lower register on the east wall (north end) and north
wall, immediately below the more or less corresponding episodes
from the first version. The convention prevailing at Abydos
'seems to have been that the episodes connected with, and
immediately following, the entry of the priest into the sanctuary
should all be depicted on the north side of the chapel, as close
to the door as possible, while the episode connected with his
departure should be depicted beside the door, on the south
side. If the two series of pre-toilet episodes followed one
another on the chapel walls as upon a papyrus roll, the second
would begin, not, as it should, beside the door on the north
side, but at the east end of the upper register on the south wall.
Hence the above-mentioned arrangement of the two series of
reliefs.
Episodes I. -IX. could hardly form the entire second version of
the pre-toilet section of the Abydos liturgy. For example, no
prostration, burning of incense, nor adoration of the god and
goddess occur among them, as in the corresponding series of
the Karnak liturgy.
The first series of pre-toilet episodes in the Abydos liturgy is
similarly curtailed. It does not contain, like the corresponding
portion of the Karnak liturgy, the episodes of kindling the fire,
preparing the censer, entering the sanctuary.
Finally, the Abydos liturgy is not, like the Karnak liturgy,40
prefaced by a general title.
These omissions can, however, be accounted for by the fact
39 See Mariette, Abydos, i., p. 39 (tab. 6).
40 See Moret, op. cit., p. 7.
46 AYLWARD M. BLACKMAN
that whereas the Karnak liturgy is written on a roll of papyrus,
which could be made as long as was required, the Abydos
liturgy is preserved to us in the form of a series of scenes to
which are appended explanatory inscriptions. The choice of
scenes doubtless depended in great measure upon what the
draughtsman thought were best suited to the limited wall-
space and also to some extent upon what he considered would
best give a comprehensive idea of the subject he had to
present.
When I speak of two versions or series of pre-toilet episodes
in the Karnak and Abydos liturgies, I do not mean to imply
that the officiating priest was confined to the use of one or the
other version. On the contrary, the object of putting them
together in one volume doubtless was that he might be able to
use formulae from either compilation indiscriminately.
We will now complete our study of the Karnak liturgy. The
sequence of the first ten toilet episodes — viz. 14-23 — is almost
exactly that of the corresponding episodes in the Opening of
the Mouth, and also, if our conclusions set forth in the list on
p. 39 are correct, that of the corresponding episodes in the
Abydos temple liturgy.
It will be seen that in some respects the Karnak liturgy more
nearly resembles the Opening of the Mouth than does the
Abydos liturgy. Thus the Karnak liturgy and the Opening
of the Mouth prescribe four dsrt- and four nmst-vessels for the
lustral washing, whereas, according to the Abydos liturgy, as
already pointed out on p. 35, only one T7-shaped vessel was
used for that purpose. Again according to the Karnak liturgy
the eyelids of the cultus-image were painted first with green
and then with black cosmetic, as were the eyelids of the statue
in the Opening of the Mouth. These two episodes are not
depicted in the Abydos chapels, possibly, as suggested above,
p. 38, owing to lack of space.
But for some reason or other the compiler of our version of
the Karnak liturgy did not make the episodes of purifying
the mouth with natron follow, as they should, the lustral
washing. Instead we find included in an odd assortment of
EPISODES IN THE EGYPTIAN DAILY TEMPLE LITURGY 47
episodes at the end of the book (episodes 24-32) four purifica-
tions of the mouth with natron (episodes 25, 26, 28 and 29).
Episodes 25 and 29 are purifications of the mouth with Upper
Egyptian natron of El-Kab ( = Abydos episode 15; Pyr. 26).
Episode 28 is a purification of the mouth with Lower Egyptian
natron of Wady en-Natrun ( = Abydos episode 14; Pyr. 27)
and episode 26 a similar purification with ^/-natron ( = Abydos
episode 16). Episodes 27, 31 and 32 are fumigations with
burning incense, 30 a lustration with the water of a XT-shaped
vessel ( = Abydos episode 12), and lastly episode 24 is the
pouring out of sand ( = Abydos episode 10).
Most if not all of these episodes are misplaced. As we have
learnt from a study of the rite of the House of the Morning
and the related rites, such as the Opening of the Mouth, the
episodes of purifying the mouth with natron should come right
at the beginning of the toilet, immediately after the washing
or sprinkling of the cultus-object with holy water. That,
moreover, is the position of these episodes in the Abydos
liturgy. Again, as I have pointed out on pp. 34 foil., there are
good grounds for supposing that the pouring out of sand comes
at the right point in the Abydos liturgy — i.e. before the sprink-
ling of the cultus-image with water. Yet again, episode 30, the
pouring out of the water of the XJ-shaped vase is, as the Abydos
liturgy shows, a variant of episodes 14 and 15, the lustral
washing or sprinkling of the cultus-image. In fact, of all nine
episodes, No. 32 alone is possibly in its right place at the end
of the liturgy, for the words, " receive the divine offerings," in
line 8 perhaps indicate that it was a final burning of incense
when the offerings were set before the divinity (see Moret,
op. cit., p. 211).
I will now give a general sum-up of the results of this discus-
sion, first of all placing the episodes of the Abydos liturgy, in
the order decided upon on pp. 33, 38, side by side with episodes
1-23 of the Karnak liturgy. It will be seen how closely both
versions of the liturgy correspond, if my suggestion as to the
starting-points of the scenes in the Abydos chapels is
accepted.
AYLWARD M. BLACKMAN
KARNAK LITURGY
ABYDOS LITURGY
PRE-TOILET EPISODES : FIRST SERIES
Episode Titles of form nice Episode
1 Utterance for lighting the fire.
2 Utterance for taking the
censer.
3 Utterance for placing the
brazier on the censer.
4 Utterance for putting incense
on the fire.
5 a. Utterance for advancing to the
holy place (bw dsr).
b. Another utterance.
6 a. Utterance for breaking the I
net sic.
b. Utterance for breaking the
clay.
7 Utterance for unfastening the 2
shrine.
8 Utterance for uncovering the 3
face.
9 Utterance for seeing the god. 4
10 a. Utterance for kissing the 5
ground.
b. Utterance for putting (oneself)
upon the belly.
c. Utterance for putting (oneself)
upon the belly, for stretch-
ing (oneself) out flat.
d. Utterance for kissing the
ground prone.
e. Another.
/. Another.
II a. Utterance for adoring Amun
b. Another adoration of Amiin.
12 Utterance for festival-perfume
(sly-hb) with honey.
13 Utterance for incense.
Titles of formula
Utterance for breaking the clay.
Utterance for drawing back the
bolt.*
Utterance for opening the two
doors. f
Utterance for seeing the god.
Utterance for kissing the ground,
placing (oneself) upon the
belly to touch the ground with
one's (lit. his) fingers when
entering in upon the god.
Offering incense in front (of the
god) with a censer.
Adoring the god four times, offer-
ing incense when entering the
palace (stp-sl).
Adoring the goddess four times.
Making purification with incense
upon the fire, encircling four
times.
* Different title but actual formula same as Karnak 7.
t Different title but actual formula same as Karnak 8.
EPISODES IN THE EGYPTIAN DAILY TEMPLE LITURGY 49
KARNAK LITURGY
ABYDOS LITURGY
TRE-TOILET EPISODES : SECOND SERIES
Episode Titles of formula Episode
I. Utterance for entering the I.
temple.
II.
III.
II. a. Utterance for entering the
sanctuary (shni) of the god.
b. Another utterance.
c. Utterance for mounting the
stairway, f
III. a. Utterance for uncovering the
face on festivals.
b. Utterance for uncovering the
face.
IV. Utterance for seeing the god.
V. a. Utterance for kissing the
ground.
b. Utterance for putting (oneself)
upon the belly.
c. Utterance for putting (oneself)
upon the belly, for stretch-
ing (oneself) out flat.
d. Utterance for kissing the
ground prone.
e. Another.
/. Another.
VI. a. Utterance for incense.
b. Another.
VII. a. Adoration of Amun.
b. Another.
c. Another.
d. Another adoration of Amun.
e. Another adoration of Amun at
dawn.
VIII. Utterance for presenting
Me'et.
IX. Utterance for incense to the
Ennead.
IV.
Titles of formula
Utterance for entering in order to
uncover the face in the palace
(ht ':?/) — i.e. temple — and the
chapels (prw) which are beside
the sanctuary (pr-wr).
Utterance for unfastening the
seal.
Utterance for incense to the
urceus-goddess.
Utterance for entering the sanc-
tuary (shm).
Utterance for entering the Great
Place (i.e. sanctuary).*
VI. Utterance for ing (dfw) the
sanctuary (pr-wr).
* This formula is a version of formula a for Karnak episode II.
t The formula of Abydos episode I. is a version of this formula c.
E
AYLWARD M. BLACKMAN
KARNAK LITURGY
PRE-TOILET EPISODES
Episode Titles of formula
X. . Utterance for laying his (the
priest's) hands upon the
god.
XI. Utterance for laying hands
upon the box in order to
perform the purification.
ABYDOS LITURGY
: SECOND SERIES (eont.)
Episode Titles of formula
VII. Utterance for laying hands upon
the god.
VIII. Utterance for unfastening (?) the
ointment (sfht mdj),
IX. Utterance for taking off the
clothing (sfht mnht}.
TOILET EPISODES
14 Utterance for purification with
four nmst- vessels of water.
15 Making purification with four
dsrt- vessels of water.
1 6 Making purification with in-
cense.
17 a. Utterance for the white cloth.
b. Utterance for putting on the
cloth.
1 8 Utterance for putting on the
green cloth.
19 Utterance for putting on the
red cloth.
20 Utterance for putting on the
dark red cloth.
10 Performing the pouring out of
sand.
1 1 Making purification with incense
upon the fire, encircling four
times.
12, 13 Making purification with a ^y*_
shaped vessel of water
and
with four balls of incense.
14 Making purification with four
balls of Lower Egyptian
natron of Wady en-Natrun.
15 Making purification with four
balls of Upper Egyptian natron
of El-Kab.
1 6 Making purification with four
balls of bd natron.
17 Making purification with incense
upon the fire, encircling four
times.
1 8 Utterance for adorning (sin (r) the
body with the nms.
19 Utterance for putting on the
white cloth.
20 Utterance for putting on the
green cloth.
21 Utterance for putting on the red
cloth.
22 Utterance for putting on the
great cloth after these.
23 Utterance for giving the broad
collar.
24 Giving the sspt and counterpoise.
EPISODES IN THE EGYPTIAN DAILY TEMPLE LITURGY 51
KARNAK LITURGY ABVDOS LITURGY
TOILET EPISODES (cent.)
Episode Titles of formula. Episode Titles of fornntLr
25 Utterance for fixing the two
plumes on the head.
26 Utterance for giving the w:)S-
sceptre, crook, whip, bracelet
and anklets.
21 a. Utterance for presenting 27 Utterance for presenting
unguent. unguent.
b. Utterance for presenting the
unguent of the daily offering.
22 Utterance for presenting green
eye-cosmetic.
23 Utterance for presenting black
eye-cosmetic.
The close correspondence of the two lists makes it evident
that the Karnak and the Abydos lists are ultimately derived
from the same source. As I have pointed out above, on pp. 45
foil., the Abydos liturgy in the form we possess it is far from
complete. But as there are episodes even in this abridged
edition of the Abydos liturgy which do not occur in our copy
of the Karnak liturgy, the latter also is very likely not quite
complete either. The two combined, however, probably form
a very nearly if not quite complete version of the daily liturgy
in an Egyptian temple (originally the sun-temple) when the
ceremonial was fully carried out.
Having purified himself in the water of the sacred pool,41 the
priest entered the temple, where his first act was to kindle a fire.
Having put the censer together, he filled the pan at the end of
it with burning charcoal from the fire and set incense thereon.
Holding the smoking censer in one hand and reciting the while
one of the prescribed utterances, he proceeded "to the sanctuary,
the double doors of which were bolted and the bolts secured with
a clay seal. Having broken the seal, the priest drew back the
bolts and opened the door,42 whereupon the figure of the god
41 Moret, op. cit., p. 8, note i, p. 79, note 2 ; see also the writer's art., "Purifica-
tion (Egyptian)," in Hastings' Encyclopadia of Religion and Ethics, x., p. 480.
42 In some temples the cultus-image was placed in a wooden or stone naos set
against the west wall of the sanctuary, in which case the ceremonies of breaking the
seal and withdrawing the bolts would have been performed in connection with the
opening of its doors instead of with the opening of the doors of the sanctuary (Erman,
A Handbook of Egyptian Religion, pp. 44 foil. ).
52 AYLWARD M. BLACKMAN
was revealed enshrined in his sacred boat.43 Upon seeing the
god the priest prostrated himself upon the ground or made
a profound obeisance, then, standing or kneeling, he chanted
first a hymn in honour of the god, sometimes burning incense
the while, and then a second hymn in honour of R'yt, who was
the female counterpart of the sun-god and identified with Hathor.
The priest next presented the god with scented honey and burnt
more incense. He then proceeded to take the image of the god
but of the sacred boat or naos in order to perform its toilet.
According to the second version of the pre-toilet section
of the liturgy, the priest recited a formula as he entered the
temple as well as when he proceeded to the sanctuary. After
breaking the clay seal and opening the doors of the sanctuary
or naos,44 he burnt incense to the uraeus-goddess and recited
a formula in her honour ; moreover, on entering the sanctuary
he swept the floor with a cloth. Again, instead of offering the
cultus-image scented honey he presented it with a figure of the
goddess Me'et, the personification of Righteousness.45 Yet
again, peculiar to the second version of this section of the
liturgy are the anointing of the cultus-image immediately after
it was taken out of the boat or naos, and the making distinct
episodes of the taking hold by the priest of the image and of
the box containing the toilet articles, and also of the taking off
by him of the clothing in which the image had been wrapped
the day before.46
Having taken the image out of the sacred boat or naos, the
priest seems to have placed it upon a little pile of sand47 which
43 See Piankhi Stele, line iO4 = Schafer, Urkimden des iigyptisclien Altertnvis,\\\,,
p. 79. In the sanctuary of the Heliopolitan sun-temple there were, according to the
Piankhi stele, loc. cit. , two such boats, the morning boat and the afternoon boat.
44 See above, p. 51, footnote 42.
45 See Blackman,y0«rw«/<?/r Egyptian Archeology, v., p. 156 with footnote 8; cf.
" Righteousness (Egyptian )" in Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, x.,
p. 79* (2).
46 For the use to which this clothing was put see Erman, Handbook of Egyptian
Religion, p. 47 ; cf. also perhaps the following passage from a lament for a dead
person : — " He who possessed much fine linen and who loved clothing (now) sleeps
in the cast-off apparel of yesterday (sdrw m sjfr n sf)" ; Wilkinson, The Ancient
Egyptians (ed. Birch), iii., pi. LXVII.
47 See above, p. 34.
EPISODES IN THE EGYPTIAN DAILY TEMPLE LITURGY 53
he had previously poured out. He now began the god's actual
toilet with a preliminary censing of the cultus-image. He next
sprinkled it with the water of the four nmst- and four dsrt-
vessels, or else with the water of one '-vessel, censed it again,
cleansed its mouth with different kinds of natron, and yet again
censed it. After this lustration he proceeded to dress the
image, putting on it the white head-cloth and arraying it in
white, green, red and dark red cloths successively. He then
decked it with ornaments, and, having anointed it with unguent,
painted its eyelids first with green and secondly with black
cosmetic. Either immediately before or after this application
of unguent and cosmetics the priest invested the image with
royal insignia. There seems to have been a final burning of
incense when the priest laid before the image a well-furnished
repast. Perhaps it was thought that through the medium of
the incense-smoke the vital force of the food and drink was
imparted to the god.48
Addendum. — When this article was already in print I came
across further evidence to support my view that Abydos
episodes I. -IX. are part of an alternative version of the pre-
toilet section of the temple liturgy, and should therefore in the
list of episodes precede Nos. 10-27. Abydos episode IX. is
the " taking off of the clothing " (sfht mnht). At Deir el-Bahri,
both in the Funerary Chapel of Tethmosis I.49 and in the
Shrine of Anubis,50 the priest-king is depicted "taking off the
adornment " {sfht db>£} of the cultus-image — i.e. all the clothing
and ornaments in which it had been arrayed the previous day
— immediately before sprinkling it with the water of the four
nmst- and four £//r/-vessels and purifying its mouth with the
two varieties of natron.
48 Cf. Pyr., 378-382, where the supplying of the dead king with food and drink
("As for this land wherein Unis walks, Unis thirsts not therein, Unis hungers not
therein ") is associated with the burning of incense.
49 Naville, Temple of Deir El Bahari, part I., pis. X. foil.
50 Id., op. cit., part II., pis. XLIV. foil.
THE INFINITIVE, ESPECIALLY THE IN-
FINITIVE ABSOLUTE IN HEBREW
AND ITS COGNATES : A STUDY IN
COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY AND
TRANSLATION
BY T. WITTON DAVIES.
COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY
WHAT has been variously called the " Infinitive," "the noun of
action," " the verbal noun," might have been as correctly
designated the "nominal [or " nounal "] verb," for it is in most
languages as much a verb as a noun. In "to play is pleasant"
it is a noun ; in " to read a book is pleasant " it is a verb, though
the whole expression "to read a book" functions as a noun in
the nominative case.
Comparative philologists lay it down as a general law that
in the Indo-European languages the infinitive was originally a
substantive. Like other substantives, it may take on case-
endings, and it is often followed by a Genitive. The endings
of the infinitive in Sanscrit, Greek and Latin have been traced
to old terminations expressing case relations : cf. the Greek
infinitives ending in ai, men and menai. For summaries of
forms assumed by the Indo-European verbal noun, see Brug.,
E.V., § 1088 ff., pp. 597 ff.; cf. ii., § 162, p. 490; Giles, 408 ff.
The same doctrine is taught with regard to the Keltic infinitive
verb, though the present writer holds that the base of Keltic
is Semitic or Hamitic-Semitic : see Zeuss, pp. 923 ff, 934;
Pedersen, ii. 411 ; and for Welsh, the Welsh Grammar (1913),
by John Morris Jones, 385 ff.
In Irish the verbal noun acts as a noun throughout, the only
object accompanying it being that of the genitive, never that
of the accusative: see Brug., E.V., ii., p. 4/0; Pedersen, ii.,
55
56 T. WITTON DAVIES
p. 413. In Old Irish verbal nouns are declinable like other
nouns: see Pedersen, ii. 411. Welsh, however, has lost its
case-endings far more completely than Hebrew, so that it is
impossible to say for certain whether the noun of action ever
takes an accusative object. The analogy of Irish is against
this supposition, but that of the Classical, Sanscrit and Semitic
languages favours it.
For the Sanscrit see the grammars of Max Miiller (1866,
§459), Monier Williams (1877, §458), Whitney (1879, § 538)
and Kielhorn (1896, § 595). The Nominal origin of the infini-
tive is made clearer in Sanscrit than in other languages, as its
case-endings (accusative, dative, locative, genitive, ablative) are
better preserved. But the infinitive functions also as a verb and
as such governs a case. This applies particularly to Sanscrit
and to the Classical and Semitic languages : see the grammars
of these languages for examples. It might be a wise thing
if British philologists took a course of their own instead of
slavishly following German scholars. Perhaps, after all, the
supposed case-endings of the Aryan infinitives are not what
they seem : at all events words with such endings pronounced
to be those of case act the part of verbs in themselves governing
the accusative. One German philologist (Hermann Paul, of
Freiburg) takes the view, unfashionable in the Fatherland, that
the verbal noun in Indo-European is primarily verbal, and only
secondarily and subsequently nominal (see his work, p. 418 flf.).
Jewish followed by the great bulk of Christian scholars have
proceeded upon two assumptions — viz. that all Semitic roots are
(i) verbal (the root or stem being the Perfect "third person
singular) and (2) triradical. The Oxford Hebrew Lexicon
(1892-1906), the completest and most up-to-date in the English
language, is arranged in accordance with these principles, words
having to be sought — some monoliteral particles excepted—
under the supposed triradical root, often with the most
ridiculous results and greatly to the bewilderment of the tyro
in the language. Buhl's edition of Gesenius's Hebrew Lexicon
places the words according to their common uninflected form-
nouns, verbs, particles, with a reference, however, to the cognate
INFINITIVE ABSOLUTE IN HEBREW AND ITS COGNATES 57
verb (its root), when that is known with tolerable certainty.
And, unlike the Oxford stereotyped issue, the German lexicon
is being revised and reissued every few years. My newest
edition — the i6th — was published in 1915 ; in it the very latest
results are incorporated, and reference is made to the most
recent literature. Why does not the Oxford Press do this
instead of perpetuating exploded opinions and ignoring the
newest knowledge ? The triradicality of Hebrew roots is taken
for granted as a working hypothesis throughout the Hebrew
Bible, and only on this theory is it possible to explain the
Massoretic vowel system as applied in the inflection of the
lAin Waw, the lAin ^Ain, the Lamed He verbs, and the nouns
derived from them : cf. the word 'ammi=my people from 'anim.
Julius Fcirst and Franz Delitzsch stoutly maintained that
Semitic roots were originally biradical or monosyllabic, as
indeed, they held, was true of all languages in their earliest
stage : see Renan, p. 437 ff.
Both Lagarde and Barth in their epochal works on noun
formation in Semitic agree in deriving all nouns from verbs.
Lagarde traces Semitic nouns to the Perfect or Imperative of
the verb, Barth referring them to the perfect (concretes) or
imperfect (abstracts). Since, however, the Imperative and the
Imperfect have a common base (the Construct Infinitive), these
two great scholars were not so far apart as the bitter words
that passed between them suggest. I heard one scholar say
that Lagarde ought to have been called " blagard " (blackguard).
The writer, a pupil of Earth's, had the profoundest admiration
and affection for the Berlin professor.
It will be seen from what has been said that Semitic scholars
are on the whole agreed that the verbal noun in Hebrew and
its cognate is primarily verbal. The Arab grammarians call
it the "noun of action"
TWO TYPES OF THE INFINITIVE IN HEBREW
Hebrew stands apart from all other languages on the face of
the earth by having two types of the infinitive, differing alike
in form and almost (not quite) always in function. One of
58 T. WITTON DAVIES
them has long unchangeable vowels ; the other was originally
monosyllabic (qotl, qitl, etc.). The first is called the "absolute,"
the second the "construct" infinitive. Arabic seems to have
a form of the infinitive very similar to the absolute infinitive in
qatali, e.g., nazali=" get down" : see Wright, Arabic Grammar*,
i., p. 62b. But this form has invariably the imperative mean-
ing, and it is not of frequent occurrence. In Assyrian, Aramaic
(including so-called Chaldee and Syriac), Ethiopic and, with
the exception just mentioned, in Arabic, the same infinitive
performs the functions of the two types of infinitive in Hebrew :
see below. Hebrew stands alone in this as in some other
respects. It is significant too that the use of the absolute
infinitive with the finite verb and of the waw-consecutive,
both of them marks of the best Hebrew, tends to fall out of
use in the later parts of the Old Testament, where the Hebrew
is poorer, and both disappear in post-Biblical Hebrew (Mishnaic,
Rabbinical).
It is natural to ask, Why did the Hebrews alone of peoples
create two distinct genera of the infinitive, dividing between
them the functions of the one infinitive in other languages?
For attempts to answer the question see Barth, N.B., C§ 41^,
103 ; cf. Z.D.M.G., xliv., pp. 678-698 ; Grimme (Hubert), pp. 66-
72 ; Praetorius, Z.D.M.G., Ivi., pp. 546-550 ; cf. Lagarde, pp. 12, 22,
174. Lagarde holds that in primitive Semitic there was but one
infinitive of the form °\[^ (fa'dl} represented by the Hebrew
(qdtol) originally hto$ (qdtdf)\ he cites as an example
shdlom, " a being whole " or " complete " (see p. 174 of his work).
Hebrew o represents d in Arabic, Aramaic, etc. : cf. the qal
participle. Praetorius (p. 546) says that the original Semitic
infinite (only one) was of the form qdtal (or qotal?}.
Both Lagarde and Praetorius base their conclusion on the
analogy of the Arabic qatdli or (Lagarde) qdtdl. But Arabic
as known in extant literature is much later than Assyrian and
Biblical Hebrew and might be expected a priori to have the
later feature of Semitic, not the earlier.
There is, however, good reason for concluding that Hebrew
had once but one type of infinitive, though we can never be
INFINITIVE ABSOLUTE IN HEBREW AND ITS COGNATES 59
sure how that one infinitive was vocalised, since the Hebrew
vowel signs (Babylonian and Palestinian) were not introduced
before the seventh or eight century of our era. The different
vocalisation of the two infinitives in the massoretic text of the
Hebrew Bible may have been adopted as a convenient method
of differentiating the various functions of what was one infini-
tive. The fact that in our Hebrew Bible the infinitive absolute
and the infinitive construct are with some exceptions written
plene and defective respectively (i.e. itBp and ^>Dp) has no weight,
for the different ways of writing long vowels 6 and I and even
u are of recent origin and are purely editorial and artificial.
David Qimkhi (1160-1232) in his Hebrew grammar calls the
infinitive the ifpn (maqor) — i.e. source or fountain — because the
other forms of verb are supposed to be derived from it. But
what he says of it applies to the construct infinitive alone (see
chapter (or section) xxvii of his grammar, HammikloF).
Nevertheless in the M.T. of our Old Testament two infinitives
occur differing alike in form and almost always in function.
The absolute infinitive has long unchangeable vowels, the
construct infinitive having usually one long or one short vowel,
both of them changeable. Why two infinitives in Hebrew at
all? The following is the probable explanation. At an early
period in the history of the Hebrew language the functions of
the original infinitive written as the absolute now is (or qdtal)
became narrowed down to those of the Biblical absolute
infinitive. Lagarde (pp. 12, 22, 76) will have it that the earliest
form of the verb was in the imperative, written almost exactly
-as the original infinitive. He distinguishes the imperatival
^ (fa1 alt) and the infinitival *\\£ (falalun) and thinks the
, Hebrew absolute infinitive represents both forms. Of course
the absolute infinitive has often the force of the imperative (see
G.K., § n.$bb\ just as in Greek (Homer, etc.) the infinitive
performs the same function (see Philippians iii. 16 for an
example — the only one — in the N.T.). But Arabic, as we know
it, is too recent to justify our arguing from it to primitive
Semitic ; besides this, the infinitival form cited is only one of
some half hundred. The restricted use of the early Hebrew
60 T. WITTON DAVIES
infinitive qdtdl (or qatdl) made it. necessary to create an allied
form to express the other freer and more numerous meanings
of the infinitive. The base of the imperfect (and imperative)
qal stem was selected for that purpose. The dropping of the
pronominal prefixes and of the suffixes of the Perfect suggests
that indefiniteness which characterises the infinitive.
This is not inconsistent with the view that the old infinitive
was the earliest form of the verb. The distinction of two
infinitives in the derived conjugations is probably an after-
thought of the grammarian, and it is found only in some
irregular verbs, and in a few forms of the Niph'al and Hiph'il
of the regular verb, the Qal originally functioning as the one
adverbial infinitive for all conjugations. For the principal
offices of the absolute infinitive see Konig, ii. (syntax),
§§ 2 1 5 ff. ; G.K., § 113; D.S., §§ 84-88, and the excellent epitome
of Hebrew syntax by W. R. Harper, pp. 84-88. The following
represent in the opinion of the present writer the functions of
the Hebrew absolute infinitive in the order of their evolution :—
1. It was used first of all as the sole representative of the
verb: see G.K.,\ \\^aa. Primitive Semitic resembled Chinese
and other ancient languages in the absence of inflections ; cf.
the historical infinitive in Latin, and the infinitive for the im-
perative in Arabic, Hebrew, Greek ; the German nicht laufen,
and the French voir in the sense vide.
The inflected stage in language is later than the uninflected,
and the full inflections of Sanscrit, Greek, Latin, Classical
Arabic, etc., are the inventions of grammarians ; they never
entered the common speech of the people. Far back in the
history of the Semites one form of the verb was made to
serve all purposes.
2. When following a finite verb, the infinitive often takes
on by implication the modifications of the inflected form : see
O.K., § 1 1 33. This idiom obtains in Syriac (see Noldeke, § 297),
in Welsh (see Zeuss, p. 934; Pedersen ii., p. 418 ; cf. Rev. iii.,
as rendered by Morgan and Parry), -in the African languages,
(see Stapleton, § 570) and in Egyptian (see Erman, § 275, cf*
Renouf, p. 56).
INFINITIVE ABSOLUTE IN HEBREW AND ITS COGNATES 61
3. The absolute infinitive immediately preceding or follow-
ing a cognate finite verb. In course of time the Hebrew
mind demanded greater precision of statement than the verbal
noun permitted, so the finite verb was constructed or at first
perhaps the elements (pronominal, verbal, etc.) by the com-
bination of which the finite verb arose were put together (cf. the
so-called "agglutinative" stage of language: see Max Miiller,
vol. i., 286 ff.). At first the old infinitive form was retained
either before or after the finite verb which defined it, but with
no effect on the finite verb itself. It is as if one were to say in
English "living" — i.e. " I have lived," or " I will or shall live."
In favour of this early redundant use of this infinitive are these
two points : (i) the Septuagint, Vulgate and other versions
often ignore the absolute infinitive which accompanies a finite
verb : see below, pp. 64 f. ; (2 )in Arabic what is called by Arab
grammarians the maf^ul mutlaq (the absolute object) has often,
according to Wright (ii. 53/2), no influence whatever on the
finite verb. Thus utilise 1C he slept, not he slept soundly.
This, however, is denied by de Sacy (i., § 576 ; 2nd ed. § 673), and
Verniers (ii., § 900). The existence of two forms of expression
in apparently the same sense was sure to lead to a differentiation
of meaning. So it came about that the infinitive before the finite
was regarded as strengthening its meaning. After the finite verb
the infinitive was made to have either the same force or more
commonly that of continuance. The accepted doctrine as to
the parts played by the absolute infinitive accompanying a finite
verb is well stafed by Konig, Kautzsch, Davidson, Harper, etc.,
in their grammars of Hebrew : see the reference at p. 60. It
may of course be asked, Are we sure that this doctrine is
sound ? Probability is in its favour : the mere repetition of
a word adds intensity : see G. K., § 123, d,e\ D S., § 29, /x*., 8. ;
cf. Isa. vi. 3, " Holy, holy" — " very holy." It is commonly used
with the voluntative as if to strengthen the wish or command.
Parallelism and the context look in the same direction.
Since all the Semitic languages agree in a general way in
this adverbial employment of the infinitive, it must have been
adopted before the separation of the Semitic peoples, nay,
62 T. WITTON DAVIES
before the Semitic-Hamites had separated themselves from the
parent stock, for Egyptian and other Hamitic languages have
the idiom in question. It has, however, been pointed out that
in Hebrew alone do we meet two types of the infinitive.
THE INTENSIFYING(OR CONTINUING) INFINITIVE
IN THE LANGUAGES COGNATE TO HEBREW
1. ARABIC. — The noun of action (^ismulfi'li of the native
grammars) when used to strengthen the finite verb is called by
Arab grammarians maf'ulmutlaq — i.e. the absolute object — and
it is placed invariably after the verb proper, Hence the Arabic
rendering of the Hebrew men niO in Gen. ii. 16 should be
bj* oj*j, tamutu maw tan. To place the absolute object first as
is done in the Arabic versions in the Paris and London Poly-
glots and in all Arabic versions of the Bible down to 1867,
when Van Dyck's greatly improved translation appeared
(British and Foreign Bible Society), is to be guilty of a
Hebraism (see p. 66). The absolute object can stand before its
verb only when it is qualified by another verb — e.g. he educated
him with a good education-, see Wright, ii., pp. 53, 56. We
have examples of this latter usage in Jon. i. 10 ; iv. 10 : cf.
LXX., which renders literally, and in the N.T. passages based
probably on the LXX. of the above verses, Mk. iv. 41 ; Lk. ii. 9
(they feared with z. great fear — i.e. very much) ; Mt. ii. 10 (they
rejoiced with great rejoicing — i.e. very greatly). But there do
not seem to be any other examples of this idiom in the O.T.
or in the N.T.
2. ARAMAIC. — This may be thus subdivided :
(a) Western Aramaic, including so-calted Chaldee. — In the
Targums (Onqelos, Jonathan, etc.) the infinitive is used to
strengthen the finite verb : the Hebrew order is usually followed
— e.g. the infinitive precedes or follows as in the Hebrew : see
Gen. ii. 16 f. ; iii. 4, etc. (infinitive first), and Gen. ^xxxi. 15;
Num. xi. 32 ; Josh. vii. 7 ; xxiv. 10, etc. (finite verb first). In all
these cases we are perhaps to see a Hebraism. This is made
more probable by the fact that apart from the Targums,
Western or Palestinian Aramaic knows nothing of the intensi-
INFINITIVE ABSOLUTE IN HEBREW AND ITS COGNATES 63
fying function of the infinitive. In the Palestine Talmud it
occurs but once ancT then in technical phrases prevalent in the
Rabbinic schools of Palestine : see Dalman, Words, p. 34.
This makes it probable that assuming Aramaic to have been
the language spoken by our Lord (see the able articles on the
subject in The Expositor by Rev. J. T. Marshall, of Manchester),
this idiom never passed His lips, though the contrary has been
maintained. This use of the infinitive occurs a few times in the
Babylonian Talmud : see Dalman, Aram. Gram., 326.
(ft) Eastern Aramaic: Syriac. — The strengthening infinitive
is used in the Peshitta almost uniformly when the Hebrew text
has it, and as in the case of the Targum the order of the infini-
tive and finite verb is that of the Hebrew ; but there are
exceptions (see Josh. xxiv. 10, etc.), and in some instances the
infinitive is ignored (see Gen. xxxi. 15 ; Josh. vii. 7, etc.). As
a rule this infinitive precedes the finite verb ; but it sometimes
follows it, with the result that the emphasis is increased : see
Noldeke, § 295 f . ; cf. Gen. xxii. 17 and Hebrews vi. 14. Duval,
on the contrary, holds that there is no appreciable difference
between the two constructions (see § 353). Kautzsch (G.K.,
§ 113^, npte) is wrong when he says that in Syriac the infini-
tive always precedes the finite verb. The use of the intensive
infinitive is continued in the modern Syriac dialects: see A. J.
Maclean, Grammar of Vernacular Syriac (1895, § 57: Noldeke,
Gram d. Neusyrische Sprache, p. 333). Stoddart denies this,
however, in his grammar. Duval (p. 333) says this idiom is not
a Hebraism, but a part of the genius of the Syriac language ;
for evidence he refers to his grammar of Mandaic, § 271
(unfortunately I have no means of consulting this work).
(c] Assyrian. — The infinitives in Assyrian have nominal and
especially verbal functions. It is used along with its finite verb
to emphasise the latter, but always before it : see the grammar
of Assyrian by Sayce (p. 166 f.) and also that of Friedrich
Delitzsch,(§ 133).
(d) Ethiopic. — The intensifying infinitive is used in Ethiopic
exactly as in Syriac ; it generally precedes the finite verb but
sometimes follows it : see Dillmann, § 181.
64 T. WITTON DAVIES
This idiom occurs once on the Moabite Stone, in the inscrip-
tion of King Mesha, line 7, nax 13N (Israel) " perished utterly."
THE INTENSIVE INFINITIVE IN THE VERSIONS
1. GREEK. — The Septuagint version of the Old Testament
(we have but fragments of the other Greek versions : see Field's
edition of Origen's Hexapla) is the most ancient, though its
age varies in different parts, the oldest being that of the
Pentateuch. Because the most ancient and for other reasons
it is the most important, for it has been a kind of pattern for
other versions, especially for the Vulgate and through that for
all Romanist and many Protestant translations. Wyclifs
English Bible was translated direct from the Vulgate, and not
from the original texts.
(a) Generally the infinitive in question is rendered by the
participle: see Gen. xxii. 17; xxvi. 28; xxxvii. 8, 10 ; xliii.
7 (6) ; Ex. iii. 7 ; iv. 14, etc., etc. Sometimes the LXX. is
followed in this literally by the translators of our English
Bible — e.g. Gen. xxii. 17: " In blessing I will bless thee," and
" in multiplying I will multiply thee." When this infinitive
follows the finite verb in Hebrew the LXX. commonly (not
always) observes the same order : see Num. xxiv. 10 ; Joel ii. 26 ;
Dan. xi. 10. In Isa. ix. 6, etc., the Hebrew order (infinitive-
finite) is reversed.
The translators of the LXX. seem to have made this idiom
their own, for they adopt it in cases where no infinitive occurs
in the Hebrew : see Ex. xxiii. 26. Is the idiom traceable in
Classical Greek? — see Winer-Moulton, §45, 8, and Konig, ii.,
§ 220b.
(b) Very often the LXX. has the abstract noun cognate to
the verb in the place of the Hebrew intensifying infinitive : see
Gen. xxxi. 15 ; Num. xi. 32 ; Josh. xxix. 10 ; Isa. vi. 9.
(c) In many instances the LXX. ignores this infinitive,
translating as if it were not in the Hebrew at all : see
Josh. vii. 7 ; Jer. xxvii. 17 ; Amos. iii. 5.
2. THE LATIN VERSIONS.— The oldest extant Latin trans-
INFINITIVE ABSOLUTE IN HEBREW AND ITS COGNATES 65
lation is that known as the " Itala Vetus," though this term
has been variously applied, Jerome's version being sometimes so
called. Its date is about A.D. 200. It exists in fragments only.
For the purposes of the present article the version of Leviticus
and Numbers (see Bibliography) has been collated with the
Vulgate, but no essential divergence on the point now discussed
has been observed.
The Vulgate often ignores the intensifying infinitive
altogether: see Gen. ii. 16; iii. 19, etc. It translates it in the
following way : —
(a) By a participle (so the LXX.) : see Ex. iii. 16 ; I Sam.
xx. 6, etc.
(£) It renders this infinitive by a cognate abstract noun : see
Gen. ii. 17 ; Hos. iv. 18, etc.
(c) Occasionally it represents this construction idiomatically
and correctly: see Ex. iv. 19; Lev. x. 18, etc.
In Latin versions of a later date the ablative of the gerund
is used, as invariably by Pagninus (see below). There are
some examples of this in the Vulgate: see Judith xiv. 10;
Acts x. 33 ; xvi. 16. The present writer has, however, failed
to discover one example of this idiom in the Vulgate of the
Protestant Old Testament. Kaulen (27 if.), who cites many
authorities and examples of this use of the gerund in the
ablative, says it came into common use among Latin prose
writers after Tacitus (A.D. 55-117) to express •" modum ac
formam rei actae " much (he adds) in the way of the participle
in the Romance languages. Rieder, cited by Konig (ii., § 22O6),
says that though occidione occidere occurs in Levy, interficiendo
interficere and the like are " alienum a Latinorum consuetudine."
The version of Pagninus (1470-1541) uses the above idiom
(ablative gerund) invariably for the intensive infinitive, and it has
no alternative rendering — e.g. Gen. ii. 17, " moriendo morieris."
Munster follows Pagninus closely, though he translates some-
times by the participle (Amos v. 5, etc.) and at times by the
cognate abstract noun (Jer. iii. I, etc.). But he nearly always
translates this infinitive as Pagninus does, only he observes the
order gerund — finite verb, whatever the order in the Hebrew.
66 T. WITTON DAVIES
This is the order observed in the Welsh versions too. Pagninus
never deviates from the Hebrew order.
Castellio (Seb. 1515-1563) issued his translation in 1551, and
in it he ignores this infinitive, with very few exceptions (one in
Gen. xxxvii. 8).
Tremellius (1510-1580) in his Latin Bible (1575-1579) trans-
lates the idiom in question idiomatically, omnino being the
adverb which he appends to the finite verb for this purpose.
Calvin ( 1 509- 1 564), Cocceius (1603- 1 669) and Sebastian Schmid
(d. 1696) in their Latin versions make Pagninus (not Munster)
their model and translate the intensive infinitive as he does.
3. THE SYRIAC. — The only Syriac version which can be re-
ferred to here is the Peshitta, the oldest (about A.D. 200) and far
the most important and most widely used by Syrian Christians.
In its rendering of the Hebrew intensive infinitive, this version
follows the Hebrew in every respect : the idiom seems to have
been as native to Syriac as to Hebrew (see above, p. 63).
4. THE ARABIC VERSIONS. — The Arabic version printed in
the Paris (1645) and London (1657, etc.) Polyglots and in the
Newcastle Arabic Bible (1811 — all identical) is a mixed one,
though that of the Pentateuch is the one made by the learned
Jewish Rabbi Sa'adya (892-942). In this complex version—
certainly in the Pentateuch — the intensive infinitive is made
to precede the finite verb as it generally does in Hebrew, an
inaccuracy due to following the Hebrew (see p. 62). This
incorrect order is followed by all Romanist versions (the last,
however, published in 1882 by the Romanist press at Beyrout
as a corrective of Van Dyck's I have not seen). It is the order
followed also by the Protestant versions down to 1867, when the
Bible Society published Van Dyck's magnificent translation.
In this latter the Arabic rendering of the intensive infinitive is
translated according to Arabic idiom — the first Arabic Bible
that could make this claim.
5. GERMAN. — Luther's version generally ignores the intensive
infinitive (see Gen. ii. 17; iii. 4, etc.) ; but sometimes it trans-
lates by the cognate abstract noun (Gen. ii. 16, as Vulgate) and
often quite idiomatically (Ex. iii. 4).
INFINITIVE ABSOLUTE IN HEBREW AND ITS COGNATES 67
6. FRENCH. — Of the French versions those promoted by
Romanists follow the Vulgate, as was to be expected, and the same
is true as regards the intensive infinitive of the earliest Protestant
version (Olivetan, cousin of Calvin, 1567) in the passages con-
sulted by the present writer : see Gen. ii. 16 f.; iii. 14, etc. But in
Ostervald's translation, now generally used by French Protestants,
the infinitive of emphasis is idiomatically rendered.
7. THE ENGLISH VERSIONS. — The earliest English Bibles,
Tyndale's, Coverdale's, the Bishops', the Great Bible, commonly
ignore the intensive infinitive, though they often translate it
idiomatically, as the Geneva Bible, A.V. and R.V. almost always
do : see Num. xxvii. 7, where the former translations are as if
the Hebrew text lacked the infinitive. There are many other
instances — probably Wyclif's version based on the Vulgate
is responsible for this defect.
8. THE WELSH VERSIONS. — The two great Welsh versions,
that by Bishop Morgan (1588) and that of Bishop Parry (1620),
in at least seven-eighths of the passages where it is found, render
this infinitive exactly as Pagninus did. Whether or not Morgan
followed Pagninus is a problem with which the present writer
deals at length in Y Beirniad (Welsh quarterly, edited by Sir
J. Morris Jones) for July, 1916 (reprinted as pamphlet). Some-
times, however, both Morgan and Parry give a correct rendering :
see Ex. iv. 14 ; xxii. 20, etc. Not infrequently Parry departs
from the older version by giving an idiomatic translation, though
Morgan's is Hebraic : see Jer. iii. I ; xiii. 12, etc. Since Parry
in almost every case, except that of the infinitive of emphasis,
corrects Morgan by the A.V. as if the latter were infallible, the
wonder is that he has not constantly translated this idiom
correctly as the A.V. does (with a couple of exceptions). I
have discovered some examples in which Parry translates the
idiom as Pagninus does — i.e. Hebraistically — though Morgan has
the correct rendering. It has been hinted that the two Welsh
versions have the order gerund (or participle) — finite verb,
whatever the arrangement in the original. In this they follow
Sebastian Munster, not Pagninus.
68 T. WITTON DAVIES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. GRAMMARS
THE works mentioned in the list below are only such as are referred to explicitly or
implicitly in the above article. They are all in the writer's own library. Other works
of importance have been beyond reach at the time of writing, though some of them
at least have been consulted, during visits to the Bodleian, British Museum, Rylands
and other libraries. The Hebrew grammars of Boettcher (1866-1868), Olshausen
(Justus), Stade, W. R. Harper, W. H. Green and several in Hebrew (D. Qimkhi,
etc.) are always at the writer's elbow in his study; and also innumerable Arabic
grammars (many in Arabic).
Armbrusher, C. H., Initia Amharica. 1908.
Earth, J., Nominalbildung in den semitischen Sprachen. 1889.
Brockelmann, J., Vergkichliche Grammatik der semitischen Sprachen. 2 vols.
1908-1912. (The author's summary of the above (1908)— also in German— is
useful for quick reference as regards results.)
BrugmannK., Comparative Grammar of the Indo- Germanic Languages. 5 vols. (The
Summary in German, untranslated— also consulted— contains some later results.)
Curtius, Georg, The Greek Verb. 1886.
Dalman, G. — (i) Grammatik des Jiidisch-Palestinischen Aramaisch. First Edition.
(Aram. Gr.}
(2) The Words ofjestts. 1902.
Davidson, A. B., Hebreiv Syntax z. 1902. (D.S.)
De Sacy, Silvestre, Grammaire Arabe. 2 vols. 1810. (Second Edition, 1831.)
Delitzsch, Franz, Jeshurun. 1838.
Delitzsch, Friedrich, Assyrian Grammar. 1889 (Last German edition, 1906.)
Dillmann, A., Grammatik der Aethiopischen Sprache^. (Second Edition, 1889;
English version, 1907.)
Duval, R., Grammaire Syriaque. 1881.
Erman, A., Egyptian Grammar. 1894. (New German Edition, 1911.)
Gesenius-Kautzsch, Hebraische Grammatik**) 1909. (Dr. A. Cowley's English vers^jpn
with improvements appeared in a second edition, Oxford Press, 1912. Cited as
G.K., though Kautzsch is really the author, following, however, the general plan
of the original work. The original edition of Gesenius's grammar (1813) is in
the writer's possession and has been consulted for comparative purposes with the
twenty-eighth (the latest edition).)
Giles, Comparative Philology. 1895.
Grimme, Hubert, Grundzilge der Hebriiischen Akzent-und- Vokallehre. 1896.
Harper, W. R., Hebrew Syntax. 1883.
Kaulen, Die Sprache der Vidgata 2. (First Edition, 1870.)
Konig, Eduard, Lehrgebdude der Hebriiischen Sprache. 2 vols. (In three parts.)
1881-1897.
Lagarde, Paul de, Uebersicht iiber die im Aramaischen^ Arabischen, und Hebrdischen
iibliche Bildung der Nomina. 1889.
Max Miiller, F., Lectures on the Science of Language. 2 vols. (Series.) New
York, 1873.
Noldeke, Theodor, Syrische Grammatik*. 1898. (English version, 1904.)
Grammatik der Neusyrische Sprache. 1868.
Paul, Hermann, Principle of the History of Langtiage. 1888.
Pedersen, Holgar, Vergleichliche Grammatik der Keltischen Sprachen. 2 vols.
1908-1913.
INFINITIVE ABSOLUTE IN HEBREW AND ITS COGNATES 69
Pnetorius, Franz, Ueber den sogen. Infinitive absolutus des Hebraischen, Z.D.M.G.,
Ivi., pp. 546-550.
Kenan, E., Histoire Generate . . . des Langue s St! antiques '2. 1858.
Sayce, A. H., Assyrian Grammar for Comparative Purposes. 1872.
Stapleton, W. H., Comparative Handbook of Congo Languages. 1903.
Verniers, T. , Grammaire Arabe. 2 vols. 1891-2.
Wright, W., Arabic Grammar*. 2 vols. 1896.
Zeuss, Celtica Grammatical. 1871.
Zimmern, H., Vergleichtiche Grammatik der Semiiischen Sprachen. 1898.
B. LATIN VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE
1. Librorum Levitici et Numerorum Versio Antiqita Itala. London, 1868.
2. The Vulgate.
3. The version of Pagninus (1528), as printed in the Antwerp Polyglot (see the margin
for the original Pagninus : the London Polyglot gives the very literal version of
Arius Montanus, with no indication of its deviations from the true text of
Pagninus). At the Rylands' Library I was able to collate parts of the original
edition of Pagninus with later editions. Pagninus renders so literally that
the present writer thinks his aim was to help students of Hebrew rather than
to supply a proper Latin version. But the version in the London Polyglot
and in the text of the Antwerp Polyglot (both identical) is yet more literal.
4. Munster, Sebastian2. 1546. (First Edition, 1534-1535.)
5. The Tigurine (Zurich) version. 1543.
6. Castellio, Sebastian. 1551 (Idiomatic, but very free.)
7. Tremellius, Im., and his son-in-law, Junius (Old Testament only). Second
Edition, 1590. (I have two later editions.)
8. Schmid, Sebastian. His version appeared in 1696, the year of his death. The
Latin renderings in the Commentaries of Calvin (1509-1564), of Cocceius (1603-
1669), Dathe, Rosenmuller and others have been consulted.
C. ENGLISH VERSIONS
The writer has been able in his own library to consult the English versions (see
dates of editions in brackets) : Tyndale (the Pentateuch : Reprint 1884), Coverdale,
(Reprint, Baxter's), Matthew's Bible (1549), the Great (Cranmer's) Bible (1566),
the Bishops'1 Bible (1566), the Geneva Bible (1660), as well as, of course, the A.V.
and R.V.
D. WELSH VERSIONS
There are but two versions of the Welsh Bible, those made by W. Morgan (1588)
and W. Parry (1620). Both these scholars were largely assisted by contemporary
scholars, Dr. John Davies, of Mallwyd, a profound Hebrew and Welsh scholar, being
the most distinguished. The later Welsh version is almost entirely a correction of
the first by the A.V. published in 1610, though the present writer has registered several
important improvements on all earlier versions, along with some changes for the
worse.
E. POLYGLOTS
The Antwerp (1576, etc.) and London Polyglots and other smaller Polyglots
(Reineccius, etc.) have been constantly referred to.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SEARCH
FOR AMBER IN ANTIQUITY
BY W. J. PERRY.
IN the course of a discussion on " The Influence of Egyptian
Civilisation on the World's Culture," which was held during
the meeting of the British Association in 1915, I ventured to
suggest that the frequent localisation of megalithic monuments
in places where various sources of wealth existed in the past
constituted evidence as to the motives which induced the
builders of such monuments to settle in these spots. I argued
that the coincidences of distribution made it legitimate to con-
clude that the people who left these monuments behind them
were in all probability engaged in the exploitation of mines, or
some other sources of wealth such as pearl-beds. .As the result
of a rough, preliminary survey of the earth, I suggested at the
time that gold was apparently the chief object of search, for so
many groups of megalithic monuments were situated on the
sites of the well-known gold-fields of antiquity. Subsequent
investigation has fully confirmed this suggestion, and has shown
that the search for gold has been the chief cause of the expans-
ion of civilisation into outlying parts of the earth. The
continual discovery of new gold-fields on the outskirts of civilisa-
tion has for thousands of years brought about successive "gold
rushes " such as were witnessed in the last century in California,
Australia and Alaska, with the consequent transplanting of an
advanced civilisation into regions hitherto tenanted mainly by
people of low culture. This has happened in the past in France,
Spain, Great Britain and elsewhere, as inevitably as in the case
of California after 1849. The romantic story of the gradual
advance of civilisation all over the earth, and of the vicissitudes
which it has experienced owing to the effects which the desire
for gold and other substances has had upon the behaviour of
72 W. J. PERRY
men, I hope before long to set forth in detail, and to show
what tremendous consequences this search has had upon the
historical process which has ultimately produced our own
civilisation.
At first sight it appeared that the movement which left
megalithic monuments and other remains scattered in various
parts of the earth was purely the result of a desire for wealth
such as is possessed by so many Europeans of the present day.
But more detailed study, especially on the part of Professor
Elliot Smith, has made it necessary to modify this opinion in
some measure.
The researches of Mr. Wilfrid Jackson, published in part in
his valuable work on Shells as Evidence of the Migration of
Early Culture, have shown that the search for pearls must have
played an important part in the causation of the outward
movement of civilisation. In countries such as France, the
distribution of megalithic monuments is not wholly accounted
for by supposing that their builders were engaged in washing
the gravels of certain river-beds for gold. In some districts
noteworthy for megalithic monuments, such, for example, as
the department of Haut Vienne and the basin of the Charente,
there is, so far as I know, no trace of the' presence of any gold
in streams or in rocks ; but the rivers, on the other hand, are
well known, as Mr. Jackson tells me, for the presence of pearl-
bearing mussels. There is good reason also for supposing that
the search for pearls has played an important part in attracting,
among others, the builders of megalithic monuments to this
country as well as to other parts of Europe. Since pearls have
been prized as a form of wealth for many centuries, although
not, like gold, as currency, it might be thought that the search
for them was simply due to the desire to obtain wealth, and
this view is certainly worthy of consideration.
• But one feature of the early history of Europe raises a grave
difficulty. In the region centred round Jutland there has
existed some form of civilisation or other from very early times.
Beginning with kitchen-middens on the coast of Jutland and
the neighbouring islands, and followed by stone monuments
THE SEARCH FOR AMBER IN ANTIQUITY 73
characteristic of various stages of civilisation, successively
occupying wider areas, this region has played a part of
enormous importance in the history of Europe ; indeed we of
late years have been experiencing only too keenly some of the
consequences of the growth and development of this civilisa-
tion. The close correspondence of the distribution of these
monuments, and especially the early ones, with the amber
deposits on the shores of the Baltic, makes it difficult to refuse
to believe that the existence of beds of amber has caused the
presence of the men who were responsible for the kitchen-
middens and stone monuments of this region.
It may be objected that the people responsible for the
kitchen-middens were of very low culture, who lived on shell-
fish and were incapable of appreciating the value of amber.
But Mr. Wilfrid Jackson quotes in his work (p. 15) evidence
which shows most emphatically that the " kitchen-midden "
people of Ireland were engaged in procuring purple from shells,
an occupation hardly typical of the culture of primitive people.
Arguments based on the assumption that crude remains mean
a low stage of civilisation are dangerous in the extreme : one
would hardly judge of the quality of European civilisation from
the rude hut and tin cans left behind by some lonely gold
prospector in Australia.
It is not certain that amber was first discovered, in Europe,
in the Baltic. This may have happened at the head of the
Adriatic. Amber was used for purposes of ornament by the
Mycenaean peoples of Greece and elsewhere, and also in
Homeric times. Nevertheless, once it was discovered in the
Baltic, it was evidently much sought after for some reason or
other. It is not easy to see, however, why it should have been
adopted so readily as a form of wealth, for it has not the same
attraction that is possessed by gold and pearls, and is simply
one of a number of objects of commercial exploitation.
It is quite easy to explain how the seekers for gold and pearls
arrived in the amber region of the Baltic, for sources of these
objects form a continuous series leading right into the heart of
the amber region, where there is a former centre of pearl-
G
74 W. J. PERRY
fishing.1 Once there the pearl-fishers could not help noticing
the amber in the water. The difficulty is in understanding why
they should have taken the trouble to send it back hundreds of
miles, and finally to settle and there build up an extensive
civilisation.
The obvious explanation of this fact is not necessarily
correct. Amber is not especially beautiful, and it is not
obvious that anyone noticing it would forthwith make jewellery
of it : at the present time it occupies an inconspicuous place
in the list of substances from which articles of ornament are
made. The whole history of mankind shows that objects now
much prized were neglected for long ages until attention was
directed towards them by some cause which often was quite
accidental. This was the case with gold in Europe, for only
with the coming of civilised strangers from elsewhere did its
exploitation begin : the hunters who lived in the gold-producing
regions of France for countless centuries never, so far as is
known, used it at all. The exploitation of gold and pearls
was evidently the work of men who were seeking for them and
attached a value to them. Can we therefore conclude that the
pearl-seekers were simply attracted by the appearance of the
amber, or did they already attach a value to the substance for
some other reason ?
Prof. Elliot Smith has, by his work on early Egyptian
religion, set forth mainly in his work on The Evolution of the
Dragon, helped greatly towards a proper understanding of some
of the causes which, while producing the religious systems of
the world, have, at the same time, led to the expansion of
civilisation beyond the region of the Eastern Mediterranean.
These researches make it possible to suggest an alternative
and reasonable explanation of the search for gold, pearls and
amber besides that which ascribes it to the desire to obtain
wealth.
In collaboration with Mr. Wilfrid Jackson, Elliot Smith has
put forward evidence which goes to show that pre-Dynastic
Egyptians had, by a process of reasoning based upon the im-
1 Jackson, Shells, p. 86.
THE SEARCH FOR AMBER IN ANTIQUITY 75
portance of water as a fertilising and life-giving agent, and
from other considerations, come to ascribe to the cowrie shells,
which they found on the shores of the Red Sea, the properties
of promoting fertility in women, of warding off illness, and of
giving greater vitality to the dead, who to them were simply
in a state approximating more or less to slumber. These
beliefs led their women to wear girdles of these shells, and the
consequent spread of the custom to the Sudan led to a great
demand for them. The Egyptians thereupon began to imitate
cowries in stone, wood, and in gold, of which they found
immense quantities in Nubia. The use of gold for this
purpose soon became popular, for the beauty, lightness and
malleability of the metal made it superior to any other sub-
stance for the manufacture of imitation cowries. The model
cowries were endowed with the life-giving properties of the
cowries themselves, and gold itself ultimately acquired these
virtues.
Not only were the properties of cowries transferred to gold,
but pearls came in time, as Mr. Wilfrid Jackson shows, to
acquire their virtues. For the Red Sea is a noteworthy centre
of pearl-fishing, and the ancient Egyptians seeking for cowries
must have been perfectly familiar with these beautiful objects,
and for some reason or other they came to endow them with
the same life-giving properties that cowries possessed.
The ancient Egyptians also came to endow certain trees
with similar properties, chief among them being those which
provided the resinous substances used in the process of
mummification, and in ceremonies connected with the anima-
tion of portrait statues of the dead. " The grains of incense
consisted of the exudations of trees, or, as the ancient texts
express it, their sweat."2 Thus these resinous substances
were endowed with life-giving properties. So it is within
the bounds of possibility that amber, which is solidified resin,
attracted attention because of its similarity to the resinous
substances to which the Egyptians attached so much import-
ance, or because pines, the source of resin, had come to acquire
2 Elliot Smith, The Evolution of the Dragon, p. 37.
76 W. J. PERRY
a significance in the eyes of the seekers after gold and pearls in
the wilds of Europe similar to that which was attached by them
to these substances.
Another difficulty remains to be cleared up. Why is it that
people in these early days braved so many and so great dangers
in order to obtain these substances? Professor Elliot Smith
puts forward an explanation which certainly serves to account
satisfactorily for this movement. According .to him the
instinct of self-preservation has driven men of all ages and
of all races to seek eagerly after all possible means of pro-
longing life, of securing immortality and of obtaining good
health and good luck while in this world. The great hold that
magic, astrology, religion and other means of procuring these
ends have had upon the peoples of the earth is a sufficient
verification of this proposition ; and, as I hope to show in the
near future, this instinct has played a great part in determining
the manner and content of the religious systems of the earth.
On this hypothesis the localisation of ancient settlements in
Europe, on gold-fields, along pearl rivers as well as near amber
beds, would be an example of that all-powerful motive. The
search for amber is thus merely an incident in a wider and
deeper drama — the search for life, in the widest sense of the
term.
The great development of scientific thought in the past few
centuries, and the preoccupation of Europeans with the acquire-
ment of wealth, has obscured in our minds the evidence for
this proposition, but there is nevertheless the clearest possible
witness of its importance in the lives of peoples who have not
advanced so far as we have in the path of material progress.
An excellent example of such conservatism is provided by the
Chinese, who have maintained unaltered customs whose precise
antiquity has not yet accurately been gauged. These customs
and beliefs have the sanction of antiquity, their value in the
eyes of the Chinese lying in the fact that they have been
handed down unaltered from the ancients, in their minds
all-knowing and all-wise. De Groot, the great Dutch scholar,
is engaged on the task of setting forth the religious system
THE SEARCH FOR AMBER IN ANTIQUITY 77
of this people,3 and he constantly emphasises the fact that
present-day practice agrees in the closest possible manner
with ancient precept.
A study of the volumes of de Groot, whose task is unfortun-
ately not yet half completed, shows that the main preoccupation
of Chinese theologians, priests, magicians and soothsayers is
that of maintaining life and health, both in this world and that
to come. The system of Tao is built up on the theory that the
universe and its content is the product of two elements : one
called Yang, which is identified with light, warmth, life and
heaven ; and the other called Yin, which is identified with
darkness, cold, death and earth.4 The life of man, being com-
posed mainly of Yang, and owing its existence to that element,
must be maintained by means of Yang, and when it is departed
the need of Yang substances is still pressing, for " death is
merely a long protracted sleep."5 Certain substances are
supposed to be more endowed with Yang than others, and are
therefore used in order to maintain life. Chief among them
is jade, which the old emperors used to swallow in solution in
order to prolong their life for many years. " The most ancient
native work on medicinal botany, known as the Botanical Canon
of Shantung, declared that 'the spiritual and immortal beings,
when they were on the point of departing this life, swallowed
five pounds of solution of jade, with the effect that for three
succeeding years their colour did not undergo any alteration.' "
. Closely connected in the minds of the Chinese with jade is
gold. In the Yih King, the Canon of Metamorphoses, it says,
"Heaven is jade, is gold." Thus "jade and gold naturally
endow with vitality all persons who swallow them, in other
words, they intensify their souls or ' shen/ which are like the
heavens, composed of Yang matter ; and they hold at a distance
from the dead corruption and decay, thus furthering their return
to life." Further it is said: "Both minerals have for a long
series of years held a prominent place in alchemy, or the great
3 De Groot, The Religious System of the Chinese.
4 Ibid., i. 22.
5 i. 269. 6 i. 272.
78 W. J. PERRY
art of preparing the elixir of life and the philosopher's stone,
Gold and jade were put in the mouths of corpses to prevent
putrefaction." 7
The Chinese also placed cowries in the mouths of the dead
for the same purpose and for similar reasons. And during the
Han dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 221) pearls were placed in the
mouths of the dead : these were supposed to be the depositaries
of Yang matter, and were said to be used for recalling to life
those at the point of death or already dead. They also facili-
tated the procreation of children, a power especially associated
in Africa with the cowrie.8
The Chinese thus attach importance to jade, gold, pearls and
cowries as being depositaries of vitalising power. Their ideas
thus show a close resemblance to those of the ancient Egyptians.
Not only is this resemblance so close in the case of gold, pearls
and cowries, but they attach importance to certain trees as
being vehicles of vitality, carriers of vital essence, of shen, the
manifestation of Yang, the author and source of all life. They
make their coffins and grave vaults more especially of fir or
pine and cypress, which, of old, Chinese authors were fond of
calling the chiefs of trees. In their search for the elixir of life
use was made of these trees and " Taoist seekers after immortal-
ity transplanted that animation into themselves by consuming
the resin of these trees, which, apparently, they looked upon as
coagulated soul-substance, the counterpart of blood in men and
animals. To this day, these substances, of which there are a
great variety, different in virtues and qualities, occupy a very
important place in the pharmacopoeia." 9
The Chinese, like the ancient Egyptians, it would seem
possess 'ideas that gold, pearls, cowries and resinous substances
are sources of vitality to human beings. The remarkable
similarity between the two lists is so striking as to suggest
a common source and origin. That two peoples so far apart
should independently have come to choose from the multitude
of living and dead objects around them just a few to be the
7 De Groot, i. 270, 271, 273.
8i. 275,277. 9296.
THE SEARCH FOR AMBER IN ANTIQUITY 79
vessels of vitality is to tax one's credulity to the breaking-
point. Fortunately it is not necessary to adopt so desperate a
hypothesis. For it can be shown, from the distribution of gold-
fields and old centres of civilisation in central Asia, that people
in the past occupied the basins of the gold rivers of the region
one by one, working southwards into Afghanistan and the
Punjab, and eastward into Turkestan, seeking always gold and
pearls and supporting themselves by the produce of their
irrigation works, until finally they, it is supposed, met in the
basin of the Tarim the ancestors of the Chinese, who, in their
turn, migrated from gold-field to gold-field until they finally
made their headquarters on the banks of the Wei, a tributary
of the Yellow river famous for its gold and agriculture.10
Now that it is possible to assign a motive for the extended
movement of civilisation, and the mechanism for its transference
is forthcoming, there is no reason to refuse to believe that the
Chinese could have derived their beliefs concerning gold, pearls,
cowries and so forth from elsewhere by means of a cultural
movement across Asia.
In the case of the Chinese, whose civilisation can be accounted
for on the hypothesis of a cultural movement across Asia from
gold-field to gold-field, the desire for life, health and immortality
has played an important part in the production of philosophical
systems and thus it is possible that their civilisation itself owes
its existence to that instinctive process. But it must be
remembered that the vast extension of the movement in. search
of gold, which substance many centuries before Christ was the
most important form of currency, constitutes strong evidence
that even in the remote ages when the civilisation of China was
founded gold was sought for this reason in addition to its
fancied properties as a giver of life. In the case of amber, on
the other hand, there seems to be reason to believe that only its
life-giving properties were responsible for its attractiveness.
This solution of the amber problem, although based upon
10 The detailed evidence I hope to put forward shortly. The evidence concerning
the early movements of the ancestors of the Chinese is certainly at present problem-
atical, but it is significant that their civilisation first sprang up in China in a region
famous for gold and jade.
8o W. J. PERRY
fragmentary evidence, at least has the merit of making it
possible to explain the beginnings of European civilisation in
a rational manner, as the result of the search for substances
which were valued by the civilised peoples of early days partly
because of their supposed virtues of endowing human beings
with life and health, and partly because of the value attached
to one at least of them as a medium of exchange.11
11 In connection with this subject, Miss W. M. Crompton points out that beads
formed either of red amber or of some resinous substance closely resembling amber
have occasionally been found in graves of the predynastic period in Egypt. Note-
worthy examples are those found at Abydos in a grave of very early predynastic date
(before Sequence Date 41). These are now in the Manchester Museum. See Ayrton
and Loat, Prehistoric Cemetery at El Mahasna, p. 11.
SOME FEATURES OF THE SIBILANTS IN
THE SEMITIC LANGUAGES
BY THEODORE H. ROBINSON.
To the student of comparative phonetics the sibilants form a
particularly interesting group of sounds. They are in most cases
easily distinguished from other sounds, and seem to have certain
fairly regular variations. All are formed by elevating the tip
of the tongue towards the roof of the mouth, though without
actual contact, and allowing the breath to pass through the
narrow aperture thus formed. The sounds are varied partly by
the position of the tongue, and partly by the shape which the
lips assume. Of the two factors the former is the more sig-
nificant, and it is really this which gives to each sound in the
group its peculiar character. Thus the tip of the tongue may be
somewhat far back in the mouth, approximating to the soft
palate (as in the English sti), or, at the other extreme, it may
nearly touch the teeth (as in the English s). Between these two
positions there may be an indefinite number of gradations, and
sounds which appear to correspond in different languages may
show slight differences when studied by a careful and accurate
ear.
This may be illustrated from the primitive Aryan speech,
which seems to have distinguished three sibilants, one at each
extreme and an intermediate one. These three appear in San-
skrit, represented in the Devanagri alphabet by *T, ^ and ST.
Sanskrit grammarians gave to them the names of Palatal
(talabya), Cerebral (murdyana), and Dental (dantya\ and they
corresponded to the three classes of mutes represented by ^ (ch\
2 (t) and <rT (t). But they showed a tendency to merge into one
another. Thus the Greek and Latin represented only one in
H 81
82 T. H. ROBINSON
writing, and probably did not distinguish more in pronunciation,
since they adopted a Semitic alphabet in which at least three were
differentiated. They discarded one of the Semitic signs, while
they used another to represent a composite sound involving a k.
Sanskritic languages show the same tendency. Whilst the
original characters are retained in writing all of them, Hindi
normally uses only the dental, though the other two are retained
when followed by their cognate mutes, In Bengali, on the other
hand, the dental has disappeared except before mutes of the t
class, while the cerebral and the palatal are no longer dis-
tinguishable to the ordinary European ear, both sounding
like the English sh. It may be remarked that the native
ear likewise seems to find a difficulty in differentiating these
sounds. The Bengali child, like the English one, has to learn
spelling.
Semitic languages appear to have distinguished originally
four sibilant sounds ; that is, they had two intermediate between
the extremes. This, of course, refers to the primitive Semitic
speech ; later developments are almost certain to have modified
the sounds, and we can at best accept the most probable con-
jecture as to the character of the pronunciation of each in the
classical periods of the various languages.
It is now generally recognised that there are in the main four
chief groups of Semitic languages, which developed largely on
independent lines. These are the South Semitic, including the
Arabic, Sabaean and Ethiopic, with their dialects and variations,
the Canaanite, of which the two chief representatives seem to
have been Hebrew and Phoenician, the Aramean, of which
Aramaic was the most widely spoken, though Syriac has left us
the more extensive literature, and the languages of Mesopotamia.
These last have left to us a single speech in various stages of its
evolution, and the names Assyrian and Babylonian are both
applied to it. The various sounds and the original types from
which the sounds in any particular root have sprung are ques-
tions which must be determined to a large extent on lines of
comparative philology, with special reference to the scripts of the
different peoples.
ON SEMITIC SIBILANTS 83
In this connection it may be well to note, as a preliminary
consideration, that the agreement or disagreement of the various
groups is a matter of great importance. If all four groups agree
in spelling a word alike, it may be conjectured with some degree
of assurance that the original sound was that indicated by the
particular signs which are used. If the same root appears in all
four with a dental sibilant, there is good ground for believing
that the dental was the sound employed in the primitive speech
for this word. If three of the groups stand together against the
fourth, the balance of probability lies with the three. If the
numbers are equally divided, the geographical situation must
be given weight. The Aramaean and Canaanite groups are
nearer to one another than either is to the Assyrian or the
Southern, and probably diverged from one another at a later date
than the other two did from their common ancestor. If, then,
the Assyrian and the Arabic agree as against the other two, they
form the stronger combination, and are more likely to have
preserved the primitive Semitic sound. t On the other hand, the
combination of the Assyrian and the Hebrew or the Assyrian
and the Aramaean as against two others leaves the original
sound uncertain.
The four sounds are only differentiated in the writing of
southern Arabia. None of the other groups has separate signs
for all four, at least in the earliest forms of their scripts, and
within the southern group neither Arabic nor Ethiopic has a
fourth sign. The four signs, with their normal transliteration
are as follows : —
X = J ^ =rf £=5 £ = /
There is no need to suggest that there ever were any more
sibilants in Semitic languages, or at least that more than four
were ever differentiated. But these must be assumed to have
been original, and to have been maintained or modified or lost
in the various groups of languages. But it must be remembered
that the various groups developed independently of one another :
and that development took two forms, an alphabetic and a
phonetic. A sound may have changed in the long period which
84 T. H. ROBINSON
must have elapsed between the divergence of the great branches
of the Semitic family and the introduction of the art of writing.
There is no evidence, merely from the script, to prove that
Syriac had more than three of these sibilants at the time when
those who used the language first tried to represent sounds by
signs. And it is possible that further modifications took place
after the introduction of writing as well as before it. This has
been the case in the Sanskritic languages, as has already been
noted, and there is no reason why it should not have been so in
the case of the Semitic peoples. At the same time, none of the
Semitic alphabets attained to that scientific perfection which
characterises the Devanagri and its daughter scripts. It is fairly
certain, for instance, that the letters n and V were used in the
Canaanite and Aramaean groups to represent two sounds each,
and those fairly easily distinguished sounds. So different were
they that in the former case the smoother sound disappeared
in Assyrian, whilst the rougher is one of the two gutturals that
appear in the writing of Mesopotamia. Most of the Semitic
peoples seem to have adopted scripts from elsewhere, and had
to be content with what they found, though in some cases the
ingenuity of the scribes served to produce fresh letters by means
of diacritic points. In considering, then, the sibilants in the
various languages, it will be well to start from the basis of their
alphabetic representation in the South Arabian dialects.
The first and perhaps the most striking fact in this connection
is the stability of the s. In a few cases it becomes confused with
or develops into the voiced sound of #*, cf. Syriac zdq = sdq, but
in the main it may be taken for granted that it persists through-
out all the languages in those roots in which it was original.
Thus :—
Meaning Arabic Hebrew Syriac Assyrian
hunt ^U TO ?0^ sddit,
cry out -.1* my %^»O • sd/m
Instances might be multipled. There are, of course, cases where
* Sounds like z or the Arabic L> are here left out of consideration, since
they are voiced sounds corresponding to one or other of the unvoiced
sibilants.
ON SEMITIC SIBILANTS 85
this sign is used, and where possibly the sound represented
another sibilant in the primitive speech, but these are beside the
present study.
For the other three sounds, the various languages had a
different set of signs, and it is here that the difficulties of dis-
entangling the story of the sibilants become apparent. Arabic
had originally only one sign to represent the three primitive
sounds, though later a second was developed by the use of
diacritic points. Syriac and Hebrew had two each, though
Hebrew, again by the use of diacritic points, obtained an extra
sign. There was necessarily some coalescence in the signs, and
probably in the sounds also. Thus it is quite clear that the
Arabic <j- represented two primitive sibilants. So, apparently
the Syriac *co, though in each case the sounds may have coalesced
before the introduction of writing. But before entering on the
relations of these signs and sounds it may be remarked that the
dental sibilant, s, is as persistent as s, and is represented always
by the same letter in each language. Thus Sabaean s = Arabic
jj- = Hebrew D = Syriac %co = Assyrian s. E.g. : —
si' 'risk,' 3L, 'forget/ r6o 'reject,' ]lflD 'reject/ si* 'throw away'
sdd 'dam/ i- 'dam/ "ID 'stocks/* ]ft> 'stocks'*
where the fundamental roots are clearly the same in all the
languages. And the Southern s seems to be represented every-
where by these same signs.
In the case of s and s, however, the various groups seem to
have diverged. The phenomena are familiar, but it may be as
well to recall them. Take first the Southern s. This is almost
invariably represented by the Arabic <j-, and though it is possible
that in Arabic and Ethiopic the two sounds have coalesced, it is
more probable that, at first at any rate, the two different sounds
were represented by the same sign. That there was an essential
difference is clear from a comparison with the other groups,
where, as a matter of fact, this sound practically never appears
* One of these is possibly a loan-word.
86
T. H. ROBINSON
under the same guise as the dental s.
be compared : —
The following roots may
Meaning
Sabaean
Man
'**
Five
tyns
Ask
ft
Six
tdth
Write
sir
Drink
sqy
Soul
nps
Nine
tsl
Arabic
Hebrew
Svriac
j
TB0
(line of a book)
nptz* ]o«
c-
Assyrian
nisu
hamsu
si
sessu
sir
V
napistu
tisit
There are one or two exceptions, the most conspicuous being
the numeral "seven," which runs the normal course except for
the Assyrian form, which has s where / is required by analogy.
In the absence of further explanation, this must be regarded as a
phonetic accident ; for the examples of the ordinary type are
sufficiently numerous to enable us to regard them as a rule.
The rule itself, however, requires some comment. The fact
wrhich stands out is that whilst the Canaanite, Aramaean and
Assyrian groups represent this sound by /, the Arabic uses the
same sign as for s. This leads to the suggestion that originally
/ approximated to the palatal rather than to the dental in sound,
and was represented by the palatal letter in those alphabets
which were rich enough to be able to distinguish them. But
Arabic started* with only two forms for all the sibilants, and one
of these was confined to the characteristic cerebral s. It may
well be that as time passed the Arabic pronunciation underwent
slight modifications, and when the scribes came to differentiate
another sibilant, it was the / and not the / which sounded most
distinctive. For it is clearly the Arabic usage which requires
explanation even more than that of the other groups.
Turning now to the fourth sibilant, the first fact that appears
is that the Sabaean s is represented in Arabic by J^, a com-
* That is, as far back as our data go. There may have been, in the
more primitive form of the script, two signs which were later assimilated to
one another.
ON SEMITIC SIBILANTS
paratively late differentiation from ,j-.*
from the following roots : —
Meaning Sabaean
Rise (sun, etc.) srk
Tribe ?b
Perceive s'r
Ten (sr
Lift up ns'
It is clear that the Arabic _
the other groups there are fresh phenomena : —
Meaning Arabic Hebrew Syriac
This may be illustrated
Arabic
represents the primitive /. But in
Flesh
Belly
Couch, throne
Herb
Spread
Satisfy
Put
Hoary
Left (hand)
> (skin)
feny
iris
Dlfr
JU
Assyrian
bisru
karsu
irsu
isbu
prS
sb
sdmu
sebu
sumelu
Exceptions to the rule illustrated are rare, and are usually
capable of simple explanation. Thus in two cases the Assyrian
has s where / might have been expected. For the Hebrew ~\V2
(' bring tidings ') the Arabic has ^£j, but Assyrian bsr. There
is reason here, however, to believe that the Arabic does not
represent the original sound, since Ethiopic has s. And the
Hebrew form may be from an original "ID3, assimilated from its
likeness in sound to the word for " flesh." So, too, the ^ of the
Hebrew Ht^D may be for an original D. In two other cases, those
of the Arabic <^L (= Hebrew l^fe, Syriac - .r>Vor>) and the Syriac
]^^^ (= Arabic ,j£-$, Hebrew &33), the unexpected forms may
be loan words.
Now in all these cases the combination of the South Semitic
with the Assyrian is much stronger than that of the other two,
The Kufic does not distinguish _£ from u-.
88 T. H. ROBINSON
even if it be admitted that the Hebrew diacritic point represents
a primitive distinction in sound. /, then, is in all probability the
original sound and sign. Indeed there is some evidence to show
that even the Aramaic had / in the first instance, cf. forms in
Old Aramaic inscriptions like "1PIP and ^NEttf. But it is equally
clear that, in Syriac and the later Aramaic at least, this group
heard or developed a sound which to their ear approximated
to s, and was accordingly represented by the same letter. But
what about the Hebrew to ? It is commonly held that this was a
separate sound, giving the tradition of a fourth sibilant, the
primitive sounds thus being represented by four different signs.
It is true that another view has been expressed. Thus Haupt,
writing in the ZDMG for 1880 (pp. 761 ff.) on Hommel's " Zwei
Jagdinschriften Assurbanipal's " states that he regards the & as
the work of the punctator, and that early Israel did not dis-
tinguish between the two sounds of tP and $.* Noldeke (on
Wellhausen's "Text der Bucher Samuelis," ZWTh, 1873, p. 121)
explains that he formerly held this view, but had been led to
reject it on two grounds, (a) the interchange of ^ and W, and of
J^ and fr, (b) the presence of IP twice in a word like "12 W, which
would seem to show that the two signs were differently pro-
nounced. But we have already seen that the interchange of the
sibilants in Arabic must be assigned to other causes, and the
peculiar spelling of "£W, and possibly other Hebrew words,
may have been due either to the fact that tradition thought of
two separate words rolled into one, or there may originally have
been a vowel between the two tfs. And two other considerations
seem to point in the direction of the view adopted by Haupt.
One is the obvious one that tP and D are practically indistinguish-
able in sound. Forms are not uncommon in which the two
letters interchange in Biblical Hebrew, and in post-Biblical
Hebrew & is often represented by D. If the Hebrews had
desired to represent a sound so closely approximating to that
which is indicated by D, it is at least probable that they would
* The present writer finds himself in general agreement with Haupt, but
his conclusions were reached independently, and apparently along different
lines. He has, therefore, developed the subject as it appealed to him.
ON SEMITIC SIBILANTS 89
have used the 0 as the Syrians did, and differentiated later, if
need be, with a diacritic point on that letter. Further, there is
some reason to believe that in the Canaanite * glosses to Assyrian
words on the Tel Amarna tablets, the & was represented by the
cuneiform sign for s. Thus we have sate = m&.
Such direct evidence as there is, then, points to the view that
Hebrew in its script differentiated only three sibilants in the first
instance. The primitive s is represented by D, s by V, and for
both the primitive / and /, perhaps hardly distinguished in the
speech of Canaan, they used the form tP. Later, under the
influence of their Aramaic speaking neighbours, they pronounced
certain words with s instead of /. These were naturally words
with a primitive /, which the Aramaeans now sounded like the s.
The difference in pronunciation was then represented by a
diacritic point. That over the left prong of the letter simply
means that it is to be pronounced like D, while that over the
right may have been introduced somewhat later for greater
completeness in the distinction. The equations ^ = V = s and
J^ = &' = s are to be explained on grounds of independent
phonetic evolution in the various groups.
* It is, perhaps, unnecessary to remark that Hebrew was probably not
the original language of the Israelites, who seem to have adopted a
Canaanite speech instead of their earlier Aramaic on their settlement in
Palestine.
THE HEBREW
BY MAURICE A. CANNEV.
THE word saharonlm occurs three times in the Old Testament
and denotes non-Israelite ornaments. In Judges viii. 21, 26
they are Midianite ornaments placed upon camels ; in Isa. iii.
1 8 they are foreign adornments worn by the women of Jerusalem.
The word is usually translated " crescents." It is clearly a
derivative from inb (Arab, shahr\ which, as G. B. Gray says
(The Book of Isaiah in ICC, p. 73), "occurs not only in
Aramaic literature " (see Levy, s.v. tnrpD, Nino), " but also in early
Aramaic and in South-Arabian inscriptions as the name of the
moon, or moon-God." The analogy of 'ishon, which clearly
means " little man " and is used of the pupil of the eye, suggests
that saharon means " little moon." Gesenius-Kautzsch (Hebrew
Gramma?', § 86g) denies indeed that the form is a diminutive
and translates " artificial moon," but without sufficient reason.
In Judges viii. 21, 26 the interpretation of the Vulgate is doubt-
ful ; in both passages the word seems to be rendered by a
doublet. In Isa. iii. 18 the Vulgate translates by lunulcc ; and in
all the three passages the Septuagint has /^/WO-KCH. It may be
said, therefore, that the Latin and Greek translators understood
the word as a diminutive. Gray translates in Isaiah "the
moons," and explains " pendants in the shape of the moon."
G. F. Moore (Judges in ICC, p. 227) renders "crescents" and
explains (v. 21) "necklaces or collars (v. 26), the elements of
which were little golden crescents." Apparently he takes the
word as a diminutive. He adds that "riding camels are still
often decorated with jingling strings of cowrie shells and metal
crescents. C. F. Burney (The Rook of Judges, 1918) translates
" crescents," and as regards the form of the word seems to
accept the decision of Gesenius-Kautzsch. All three com-
92 MAURICE A. CANNEY
mentators agree that the ornaments were (or were originally)
amulets.
G. F. Moore's reference to cowrie shells is particularly inter-
esting, for according to G. Elliot Smith (The Evolution of the
Dragon, 1919, p. 156) pearls found in oysters and used as
a surrogate for cowrie shells were supposed to be little moons,
drops of the moon-substance (or dew) which fell from the sky
into the gaping oyster. In the Journal for 1918 he explained
that the Red Sea cowrie shell, which simulates what Semitic-
speaking peoples still call "the giver of life," came to be
regarded " as an appropriate amulet to add vitality to living
or dead, to ward off danger to life or to give renewed supply
of life-substance to the dead. But the circumstances of its
original symbolism made it also potent to increase the fecundity
of women and to facilitate birth. When the moon also came
to be regarded as a controlling influence over these physio-
logical processes in women the moon was drawn into the circle
of elixirs of life." Then the pearl found in a shell came to be
regarded " as a heaven-sent fragment of moon-substance and
the quintessence of life-giving substance." Finally where shells
were not easily procurable, models were made of them in gold.
It seems clear, therefore, to the present writer that saharon is
really a diminutive meaning " little moon " and denotes either
a "pearl" or a cowrie shell modelled in gold.
SOME NEW PUBLICATIONS
TifUREAU-DANGlN and Scheil have done excellent work in
classifying the Sumero-Babylonian signs, but one can hardly
say that their lists have done much to facilitate the work of the
student. It is obvious that if the study of Assyriology is to be
encouraged the work of learning the cuneiform script must be
facilitated as much as possible, and this can only be done by
classifying the Sumero-Babylonian signs as well as the Assyrian
signs in such a manner as to enable the student to learn them
and find their values when required with comparative ease.
This seems to have been the great object which Professor
S. A. B. Mercer had in view when he set himself to compile
his book, A Sumero- Baby Ionian Sign List (Columbia University
Press, 255. net ; English agent, Humphrey Milford), and
students owe him a deep debt of gratitude for his work.
The author commences his work with a " Guide to the Order
of Signs," where he shows the manner in which he has classified
and arranged the signs in the subsequent sections. Then he
arranges the most important archaic signs, leaving a consider-
able space at the end of the chapter so that the student may
enter new and variant signs as he meets with them. Now as to
the arrangement of the list itself. This consists of three columns.
In the first is the Archaic sign, in the second is the Assyrian
equivalent, and in the third is the transliteration. In speaking
of this division one is reminded of the similarity it bears to
many of the tablets and fragments from Kouyunjik now in the
British Museum (K. 4372). These documents give in long
narrow columns lists of Archaic Babylonian characters, some-
times with, sometimes without, their Babylonian equivalents,
and are of value in enabling the student to obtain an idea
of what the original line-forms of the various characters were
like.
In the next section Professor Mercer gives a list of signs from
93
94 SOME NEW PUBLICATIONS
Ur-Nina to the Neo-Babylonian Period. Here the pages are
divided into four columns. The first gives the Sumero-Baby-
lonian sign ; the second the Assyrian equivalent ; the third the
transliteration, and the fourth the period to which the sign
belongs ; whilst space is again left at the end of the section
for the addition of new and variant signs. Then the Sumero-
Babylonian numerals, weights and measures, and finally the
Assyrian signs, are arranged in order that the student may
identify each sign from the group without difficulty. The work
will certainly prove very useful to students who do not wish to
consult the much larger works of Briinnow or Barton, which
contain many rarer signs and more unusual equivalents.
The only criticism which the present writer would like to
make is that he considers it inadvisable on the part of the
author to have given besides the Sumero-Babylonian signs in
Arabic numerals the date to which he considers the signs to
belong. The author follows the period adopted by Barton in
his " Babylonian Writing." But the periods which Barton
suggests for many of the signs are disputed by scholars and are
still sub judice. It is therefore hardly advisable to introduce
in a work of this kind which is intended for beginners questions
which are still the subjects of discussion by scholars.
M. H. F.
During the past year Sir J. G. Frazer has added to his other
services that of publishing a voluminous work on Folk-lore in
the Old Testament (Macmillan & Co., 1918, three volumes,
3/s. 6d. net). It need hardly be said that he has constructed
a rich storehouse of information on the subject, and that he
writes with the charm for which he is noted. No one who
is engaged in Old Testament research can afford to neglect
these volumes. Whether other students of the subject will
interpret the data in the same way and arrive at the same
conclusions is another question. The author frankly admits
this. The study of folklore is still in its infancy, " and our
theories on the subjects with which it deals must probably for
a long time to come be tentative and provisional, mere pigeon-
holes in which temporarily to sort the multitude of facts, not
SOME NEW PUBLICATIONS 95
iron moulds in which to cast them for ever." This is particu-
larly true of Oriental and Egyptian folklore, for new texts are
being discovered or old texts are being reinterpreted in the
light of new linguistic knowledge, continually. We have only
to think of the work which is being done in Egyptology by
Ur. Alan Gardiner and Dr. A. M. Blackman, or in Assyriology
by Dr. L. W. King. There is indeed much to be said for the
view that the time has not yet come to deal adequately and
satisfactorily with Old Testament folk-lore. But the fact is
that Dr. Frazer's work, being a comparative study, travels far
beyond the Old Testament. For here are to be found creation
myths and deluge stories, for instance, gathered from every
part of the Old and New World. Whatever supplementation,
readjustment and correction may have to be made from time
to time, much of the material in these volumes will stand
unaltered.
Professor G. Elliot Smith's book, The Evolution of the Dragon
(Manchester University Press, 1919), is concerned with the same
kind of research, but the author cuts out new paths and travels
along them with great daring and with wonderful skill. A
more stimulating and suggestive work we have not read for
a long time. Professor Elliot Smith relentlessly pursues the
Dragon in every direction, ferrets him out of his hiding-places,
and strips off his multiform disguises. The title of the book
gives no idea of the variety of subjects touched upon or of the
surprises in store for the reader. Who, for instance, would
expect to find chapters on "Incense and Libations"? But
they are there, and are of extraordinary interest.
Dr. C. F. Burney has published two important works — his
Schweich Lectures for 1917 (Israel's Settlement in Canaan: The
Biblical Tradition and its Historical Background, Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1918, 33. 6d. net) and his Book of Judges
(Rivingtons, 1918, 2 is. net). The Lectures may be regarded
as supplementing the Commentary on the historical side. In
them he discusses all the external allusions which seem to
bear more or less directly upon the early history of Israel and
attempts to bring them into relation with the Biblical traditions.
i)6 SOME NEW PUBLICATIONS
This involves, of course, the important question of the date to
be assigned to the Exodus. The Commentary is not only a
worthy companion to Dr. Burney's Commentary on the Book
of Kings, but represents even greater learning and riper
scholarship. The Additional Notes, which are really essays
on special subjects, are of great value, even if they are some-
what out of place in a Commentary. Dr. Burney has so much
to say that he does not seem to know where to stop.
Dr. L. W. King's Schweich Lectures for 1916 (Legends of
Babylon and Egypt in relation to Hebrew Tradition, Oxford
University Press, 1918, 33. 6d. net) are of special importance,
because they deal with new material which has been published
in America since the outbreak of the War. " The bulk of our
new material is furnished by some early texts written towards
the close of the third millennium B.C. They incorporate tradi-
tions which extend in unbroken outline from their own period
into the remote ages of the past, and claim to trace the history
of man back to his creation. They represent the early national
traditions of the Sumerian people, who preceded the Semites
as the ruling race in Babylonia ; and incidentally they
necessitate a revision of current views with regard to the cradle
of Babylonian civilisation. The most remarkable of the new
documents is one which relates in poetical narrative an account
of the Creation, of Antediluvian history and of the Deluge. It
thus exhibits a close resemblance in structure to the correspond-
ing Hebrew traditions, a resemblance that is not shared by the
Semitic-Babylonian versions at present known.' But in matter
the Sumerian tradition is more primitive than any of the
Semitic versions. In spite of the fact that the text appears
to have reached us in a magical setting, and to some extent in
epitomised form, this early document enables us to tap the
stream of tradition at a point far above any at which approach
has hitherto been possible."
M. A. C.
THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED. EDINBURGH
JOURNAL OF THE MANCHESTER /
EGYPTIAN AND ORIENTAL
SOCIETY
No. IX
MANCHESTER
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
12, LIME GROVE, OXFORD ROAD .
LONGMANS, GREEN 6- CO.
LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, ETC.,
1921
PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
(H. M. MCKECHNIE, M.A., SECRETARY)
12 LIME GROVE, OXFORD ROAD, MANCHESTER
LONGMANS GREEN AND CO.
LONDON I 39 PATERNOSTER ROW
NEW YORK : 443-449 FOURTH AVENUE
AND THIRTIETH STREET
CHICAGO : PRAIRIE AVENUE
AND TWENTY-FIFTH STREET
BOMBAY : HORNBY ROAD
CAIXUTTA : 6 OLD COURT HOUSE STREET
MADRAS : 167 MOUNT ROAD
CONTENTS
List of Officers and Members of the Society 4
Objects of the Society 4
Position of the Society at the end of Session 1919-20 . . 5
Prcc-esci-rs cf the Session 8
Major JoJm Samuels, V.D., on Some Curious Points in Egyptian
Chronology g
Professor A. S. Yakuda on Monuments of Moorish Times in
Mediaeval Spain 8
Dr. H.R. //o/7 oo Recent Excavations at Ur erf the ChaWees . 9
Jeremiah. 10
Professor Maurice A. Canaey calteS^na&aatt ai^vaxs . . n
Professor Stewart MacaKster on Past Excavation in Palestine . II
Professor Garstamg on tike British School of Archaeology in
Jerusalem 13
Mr. W. J. Perry on the Origin of Warlike States ... 14
Professor T. EricPeet on El Ainarna, the City of Egypt's Heretic
King . . .... 14
Mr.NortJuateW. TloiMs on the Peripfas of Hanno . . . 14
Becks a^ii Finriilr^ 17
Excavation at Tell d-Amarna 18
Statement of Receipts and Expenditure 19
Special Papers and Articles :
The Significance of Names by Maurice A. Caumey ... 21
The Problem of Akhenatnn by T. Eric Peel . . . .39
Jesse Haworth by W. M. Grompto* 49
•^
Some New Publications 53
MANCHESTER EGYPTIAN AND ORIENTAL SOCIETY
SESSION 1919-1920
List of Officers and Members
President
Professor MAURICE A. CANNEY, M.A.
VIce-Presidents
The Vice-Chancellor of the University (Sir HENRY MIERS, M.A., Ph.D., D.Sc., F.R.S.)
•The Right Rev. THE LORD BISHOP OF
LINCOLN (E. L. HICKS, D.D.)
F. A. BRUTON, M.A., Litt.D.
•Principal R. M. BURROWS, D.Litt. (King's
College, London)
S H. CAPPER, M.A.
T. W. RHYS DAVIDS, LL.D., Ph.D., F.B.A.
Hon. Professor Sir W. BOYD DAWKINS,
M.A., D.Sc., F.R.S.
A. H. GARDINER, D.Litt.
* JESSE HAWORTH, LL.D.
W. EVANS HOYLE, M.A., D.Sc., M.R.C.S.
Professor E. H. PARKER, M.A.
Professor A. S. PEAKE, M.A., D.D.
The Right Rev. THE BISHOP OF SALFORD
(L. C. CASARTELLI D.Litt.Or., D.D.)
Professor G. ELLIOT SMITH, M.A., M.D.,
F.R.S.
Other Members of the Council
Ven. Archdeacon ALLEN, M.A.
"Principal W. H. BENNETT, M.A., D.D., Litt.D.
Mrs. RHYS DAVIDS, M.A.
Professor A. C. DICKIE, M.A., F.S.A.,
F.R.I.B.A.
Miss CAROLINE HERFORD, M.A.
Mrs. HOPE W. HOGG, M.A.
Mrs. W. HARTAS JACKSON.
THE LIBRARIAN OF THE RYLANDS
LIBRARY (Mr. H. GUPPY, M.A.)
Rev. H. McLACHLAN, D.D.
Principal MARSHALL, M.A., D.D.
Rev. J. A. MEESON, M.A., LL.B.
Professor T. ERIC PEET, M.A.
W. M. TATTERSALL, D.Sc.
Rev. W. L. WARDLE, M.A., B.D.
Editor of Journal— Professor MAURICE A. CANNEY, M.A.
Honorary Secretary and Treasurer— Miss W. M. CROMPTON.
Honorary Auditor— Mr. E. MELLAND.
Other Members of the Society
Sir F. F. ADAM, H. ALLAN, P. J. ANDERSON, N. ANGLIN, A. ARCHER-BETHAM, Dr. ASH-
WORTH, Dr. C. J. BALL, Miss A. E. F. BARLOW, J. R. BARLOW, Mr. J. E. BELL, C. H. BICKER-
TON, Dr. J. S. BLACK, Miss E. E. BOUGHEY, Miss M. BURTON, Wm. BURTON, Prof. W. M.
CALDER Mrs. CANNEY, Mrs. CAWTHORNE, Miss CAWTHORNE, C. CLEMENTS, F. O. COLE-
MAN, Prof. R. S. CONWAY, Dr. D. CORE, Mrs. H. F. COWARD, R. H. CROMPTON, Prof. T. W.
DAVIES, Miss DAVISON, *W. J. DEAN, C. W. DUCKWORTH, M. H. FARBRIDGE, Col. Ph.
FLETCHER, Mrs. Ph. FLETCHER, Rev. T. FISH, Rev. L. W. GRENSTED, Miss K. HALLIDAY,
F. J. HARDING, J. S. HARDMAN, J. A. HAMWEE, Dr. RENDEL HARRIS, Mrs. J. HAWORTH,
Miss M. M. HEYWOOD, Prof. S. J. HICKSON, Miss JACKSON, "Canon C. H. W. JOHNS, Miss E. F.
KNOTT, Mrs. LANGFORD, E. MELLAND, Rev. J. PEREIRA-MENDOZA, Dr. A. MINGANA,
T. D. MOSCONA, MUSSES ROYAUX DU CINQUANTENSIRE, BRUSSELS, B. RODRIGUES-
PEREIRA, W. J. PERRY, Miss K. QUALTROUGH, G. W. REED, H. L. ROTH, THE RYLANDS
LIBRARY, B. C. RYDER, EVAN ROBERTS, J. P. SCOTT, Major SAMUELS, V.D., Mrs. S. SIMON,
Rev. D. C. SIMPSON, Rev. I. W. SLOTKI, Mrs. ELLIOT SMITH, Mrs. WT. M. TATTERSALL, Mrs.
TATHAM, Miss V. TATHAM, Rev. W. THOMAS, T. G. TURNER, Rev. J. B. TURNER, Prof. G.
UNWIN, H. WELD-BLUNDELL, Miss K. WILKINSON.
Objects of the Society
(i.) To discuss questions of interest with regard to the languages, literatures, history and arcbaeolagy
of Egypt and the Orient.
(ii.) To help the work of the excavating societies in any possible way.
(iii.) To issue, if possible, a Journal. If this is not possible, to print at le^st a Report, including abstracts
of the papers read at the meetings of the Society.1
SUBSCRIPTIONS.
(a) For ordinary members, 55. per annum (student members, as. 6d.).
(b) For Journal members, IDS. 6d., of which 55. 6d. is assigned to the Special Publications Fund.
Subscriptions are due in January.
PUBLICATIONS.
Journal of the Manchester Oriental Society for 1911 53. od. net
Journal of the Society, 1912-13 ; 1913-14; 1914-15; 1915-16; 1916-17; 1917-18; 1918-19;
1919-20 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. each 53. od. net
Manchester Egyptian Association Report, 1909-12 . . . . . . . . . . each os. 3d. net
Report of the Society, annually, 1912-13 to 1919-20 .. .. .. .. .. ..is. 6d. net
List of Books on Egyptology, September 1912 to September 1913, and Catalogue of Library
of the Society, 1913 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . . os. 6d. net
New Members can buy back numbers at balf-piice.
* Deceased in course of year.
1 There is a Special Publications Fund, for which subscriptions and donations are invited.
REPORT
OF THE
MANCHESTER EGYPTIAN AND ORIENTAL SOCIETY,
1920
POSITION OF THE SOCIETY
AT END OF SESSION 1919-20
BEFORE proceeding to any other matters, we must refer to the
great loss the Society has sustained this year by the deaths of
Dr. Berlin, the Bishop of Lincoln (Dr. E. L. Hicks), Dr. Burrows,
Dr. Johns, Dr. Bennett, and Dr. Jesse Haworth. The death
of Dr. Berlin, though occurring this year, was noted in the
Report for last session (Journal, 1920, p. 8). In the Bishop of
Lincoln we have lost one of our Vice- Presidents.
To Dr. Ronald M. Burrows, late Principal of King's College,
London, the Society and the cause of archaeology in Manchester
owe a debt that cannot easily be calculated. When in 1909 he
took up his appointment to the Chair of Greek in Manchester
University, he at once joined the Manchester Egyptian Associa-
tion. Later he became also one of the first members of the
Manchester Oriental Society. He was a constant attendant at
the meetings, both as a speaker and as a member of the audience.
When Dr. Burrows first settled in Manchester, the Egyptian
collection of the Museum was still housed in an ill-lighted attic.
The preparation of his first address to the Egyptian Association
led him to work among the objects, whereupon he became greatly
impressed with the value of the collection. From that time he
used all the force of his remarkable personality to hasten forward
the scheme for the extension of the Museum, and when the
munificence of Dr. Jesse Haworth made it possible for definite
arrangements for this extension to be undertaken, he was one
6 REPORT
of the most useful members of the Committee. He also success-
fully urged the re-appointment of a Lecturer in Egyptology,
a post which had been allowed to lapse for some years. His
intense energy, his brilliance, and his thoroughness will long be
remembered by those who came into touch with him in Man-
chester.
Dr. Johns, late Master of St. Catharine's College, Cambridge,
and Professor of Assyriology, took an interest in the foundation
of the Oriental Society and was a member of the amalgamated
Society to the end of his life. He helped us by contributing to
the Journal (1914, pp. 67-72). We could ill afford to lose the
interest and support of so eminent an Orientalist.
Dr. W. H. Bennett, late Principal of Lancashire Independent
College, rendered active and valuable service to the Society.
A member of its Council, he rarely missed attendance at its
meetings. He addressed us in 1915 (Journal, 1915, pp. 19-21),
and contributed an article to a recent number of the Journal
(1918, pp. 43-51). His loss will be felt the more keenly, because
he was resident amongst us and was nearly always at hand to
help us.
Dr. Jesse Haworth died on the 23rd of October, 1920 (born
August 4th, 1835). His keen interest in Egyptology was mani-
fested in many ways, of which the enrichment (indeed the
formation) of the Egyptian Department of the Manchester
Museum was not the least. A short notice will be found on p. 49
of the current number of our Journal. The Manchester Egyptian
and Oriental Society has reason to cherish his memory.
Coming now to the regular work of the year, this began badly,
as the railway strike prevented Professor Flinders Petrie
from opening our Session as usual on the first Monday in October.
Our second date was equally unfortunate ; illness prevented
Dr. Blackman from keeping his engagement here, and so it
came to pass that our Annual Meeting was not held until Novem-
ber i8th. In spite of this, nine meetings were held during the
session — a greater number than ever before. Details appear
on p. 8.
Besides the six deaths recorded, seven persons have resigned
or allowed their subscriptions to lapse. Ten persons have
joined ; our total membership is now 93. As will be seen from
the Balance Sheet (p. 19) this membership is quite insufficient
REPORT 7
to enable us to continue to issue a Journal at the present
enormously increased price of printing. But for the substantial
help of Dr. Jesse Haworth and a few other members, it would
have been impossible to issue the present much smaller number.
The number of books and pamphlets added to our collection
is 13. A complete list appears on p. 17. A particularly useful
exchange, very advantageous to us, is Vols. I., II., and III. of
the Liverpool Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology. This
completes our set, and as Vol. I. is out of print we have been
generously treated in the matter. Many of the other items are
gifts, for which grateful thanks are returned to the donors.
M. A. C.
W. M. C.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE SESSION
1919-1920
THE ANNUAL MEETING of the Society was held on Tuesday,
November i8th, 1919, the President in the chair.
A vote of sympathy with the family of the late Bishop of
Lincoln, Dr. E. L. Hicks, was passed on the motion of Prof.
Peake, seconded by Rev. H. McLachlan ; also a similar vote
for the family of the late Dr. Leonard King, on the motion of
Dr. Bennett, seconded by Mr. M. Farbridge.
The Secretary read the Report and Balance Sheet as they
appear on pp. 5 and 17.
A Council and Officers were elected as appears on p. 4.
Major John Samuels, V.D., read a Paper on " Some Curious
Points in Egyptian Chronology," illustrated by a chart. He
contended that many of the Egyptian Dynasties were con-
temporaneous— that the arrangement in dynasties was very
late, and the numbering entirely fictitious.
Amongst other points he maintained that the tablets of Abydos
and Saqqara are correct in placing the XVIII. dynasty imme-
diately after the XII. He considered that dynasty XI. consisted
of vassal kings ruling under the XVIII. dynasty, and cited
amongst other facts strengthening this theory a remark of Mr.
Lane-Poole — " On examining the earliest monuments of dynasty
XVIII., we were struck by their resemblance to those of dynasty
XL, a resemblance which would, if we had no historical evidence
on the other side, justify the leap of the Tablet of Abydos from
dynasty XII. to XVIII." If, as Major Samuels suggested,
these dynasties XL and XVIII. were contemporaneous, there
was nothing remarkable in a likeness between their monuments.
As to later history, the Shishak who opposed Rehoboam is
usually taken to be Shishak I. Major Samuels suggested Shishak
III. as the more likely, for his queen was the only one who
bore the same name, Tahpenes, as the queen mentioned in
I. Kings xi., 19.
The general result of Major Samuels' re- arrangement and
compression of the dynasties was to bring up the date of Menes
to about 2300 B.C.
The SECOND MEETING was held on Monday, December 8th,
1919, the President in the chair.
Dr. A. S. Yahuda, Professor of Jewish History and Literature
in the University of Madrid, gave an address on " Monuments
of Moorish Times in Mediaeval Spain." The lecturer gave an
REPORT
9
account of the advanced state of learning and civilisation attained
by the Moors in Spain. The rule of the Arabs was animated by
a desire to treat all races and religions with equal tolerance, and
thus allowed of a culture in which all talents grew up unhampered.
The literary revival of Bagdad under the Abbaside dynasty
spread to Spain, and great schools were founded. When, a
century later, political anarchy was rife in the East, the Arabs
in the West were in tranquility, and learning spread, reaching
its zenith in Cordova, in the days of Abd-el-Rahman III., 912-
961 A.D. Thousands of youths flocked thither, and every
theological doctrine and philosophical system was studied,
together with medicine, astronomy, etc. The number of houses
was 120,000 for a population of 2,000,000. The library of
Khalif-al-Hakim consisted of 400,000 Arabic MSS, together
with works in Greek, Latin, Syriac, Hebrew and Persian. Of
the other great centres of culture, Granada, Valencia, Saragossa
and Seville were specially mentioned. From Granada came
the great architects, including the designer of the Alhambra.
Dr. Yahuda concluded with the hope that, under the pro-
tection of England, the races of the Near East would again take
a place in the forefront of civilisation. The lecture was illustrated
by magnificent slides, from Dr. Yahuda's own photographs and
coloured under his direct supervision.
The THIRD MEETING was held at the University on Thursday,
January I5th, 1920, Dr. W. H. Bennett in the chair. It had
been announced that Dr. H. R. Hall, of the British Museum,
would lecture on " Recent Excavations at Ur of the Chaldees."
But the Chairman reported that Dr. Hall had been prevented
from coming to Manchester. The manuscript of his lecture
and the lantern slides had, however, been sent to Professor
Canney, who had undertaken to read the lecture. The lecture
described the excavations carried out by Dr. Hall at the expense
of the Trustees of the British Museum in Southern Babylonia,
during the spring of the year 1919. Dr. Hall continued the
excavation of Abu Shahrein (the ancient Eridu), begun in the
previous year by Capt. R. Campbell Thompson, carried out
extensive explorations of the mounds of Tell Muqeiyir (the
ancient Ur), and discovered and partly dug an entirely new
site four miles from Ur, called Tell el-Ma' abed by the Bedu'
or nomad desert Arabs, and Tell el-'Obeid by the Muntefik or
settled tribes. Tell el-*Obeid is the name officially adopted,
io REPORT
though it is probably a corruption of the other name, which
appears appropriate (it means " Mound of the Place of Worship "),
since this small tell was apparently a temple of the goddess
Damkina, spouse of Enki or Ea, the god of the abyss, who was
worshipped ten miles off at Shahrein.
At el-'Obeid, Dr. Hall found prehistoric remains of the same
kind as those found by Capt. Thompson at Shahrein, including
fine pottery of De Morgan's first and second styles, like that
discovered at Susa, Musyan, and Bander Bushir. The chief
find, however, was of rather later date, though still very early :
a cache of early Sumerian copper heads and figures of lions
and bulls (some of the lions' heads being life-size), with eyes
inlaid in red jasper, white shell, and blue schist, and with red
jasper tongues. These were perhaps the supports of a great
copper throne. Another remarkable object here found was a
copper relief of Imgig, the lion-eagle of Lagash, holding two
stags by their tails. This relief measures eight feet by four.
It is unhappily in very bad condition, and will need to undergo
a long process of restoration. Inscriptions show that these
objects are of the age of Ur-Nina (c. 3500 B.C.).
At Ur itself, E-Kharsag, the palace of King Dungi (c. 2500
B.C.), was found and excavated. It yielded a certain number
of interesting objects, especially tablets of a later period (eighth-
seventh century B.C.) when the ruined ancient building was
re-occupied and partly rebuilt by a colony of priests attached to
the local worship of the Moon-god. The original building of
E-Kharsag is interesting architecturally, and its walls are in
fair preservation up to a height of five or six feet. Other early
buildings were investigated, and a number of the tombs of late
period, which everywhere cover the mounds, were excavated.
At Shahrein, the most interesting discovery made by Dr.
Hall was that of early Sumerian houses, built of crude brick
covered with hard white stucco, often decorated with horizontal
bands of white and red.
The first publication of the results will shortly be made in
the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries.
The FOURTH MEETING was held at the University on Wed-
nesday, February 4th, 1920, the President in the chair. Dr.
Theodore Robinson, of University College, Cardiff, delivered an
address on " The Structure of the Book of Jeremiah." He
explained that the book was compiled from three main sources :
REPORT ir
(i) oracular ; (2) autobiographical ; and (3) biographical. He
then considered the structure of the book in the light of a study
of Old Testament rhythm and metre. He urged that where, as
is often the case in Jeremiah, we have two versions of the same
utterance and one of them is metrically more complete, metre
is proved to be a reliable instrument for correcting the shorter
text, especially when it is found that the corrections are sup-
ported by the Septuagint. If, as he believed, the prophet
spoke in ecstasy, the original oracles will have been brief utterances
full of feeling and fervour. These floating oracles were gathered
up first into small collections. Then they were enlarged, and
various editorial amplifications were added to them.
The FIFTH MEETING was held at the University on Wednesday,
February 25th, 1920, Professor Sir William Boyd Dawkins in
the chair. Professor Maurice A Canney delivered a lecture on
' The Significance of Names," and considered in special detail a
custom which proves to be particularly widespread — that of change
of name. The lecture is printed in full on pp. 21-37 of the Journal.
The SIXTH MEETING of the session was held on Monday,
March I5th, at 8 p.m., the President in the chair. Professor
R. A. Stewart Macalister gave an account of past archaeological
excavation in Palestine in which the first point was a
reference to the work of the pioneers in the field — the Americans,
Robinson and Eli Smith, who identified a great number of sites,
as did also the German, Titus Tobler. The establishment of
the Palestine Exploration Fund followed in 1865. They under-
took a geographical survey of the land. The country west of
the Jordan was taken in hand between 1872 and 1878, Captain
Conder and Lieut, (afterwards Lord) Kitchener being, amongst
others, engaged on the work. The result was seen in the great
map finally published. This contains over 10,000 names. The
country east of the Jordan was a more difficult undertaking,
but maps of the Moabite district and of the Hauran, the Jaulan
and the Ajlan regions were made by Conder and Schumacher.
Finally, in 1912-13, the land south of Beersheba to the frontiers
of Egypt and from the Mediterranean to the Gulf of Akaba, was
mapped by Capt. Newcombe and Lieut. Grey, R.E., and explored
archaeologically by Messrs. Woolley and T. E. Lawrence in
1913-14. The archaeological results were published in the
" Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund for
1914." The map, for obvious reasons, could not be issued
12 REPORT
during the war. As to actual excavations, the chief results
were — at Jerusalem, Capt. Warren, between 1867 and 1870,
made plain the original lie of the land, proving that the shallow
valley between the Eastern and Western hills, now nearly filled
up with debris, had once been a deep ravine, and that the temple
must have occupied the eastern hill, on the site now known as
the Dome of the Rock. The statement of Josephus, that Herod
had doubled the area of the temple courts and built a great gallery
supported by an arch across the valley between the eastern
and western hills, was proved correct.
The biblical Moriah and Zion were both names for the same
hill, the temple mount. The present Church of the Holy
Sepulchre was shown to be on the site originally selected by
Bishop Macarius in the time of Constantine. In all these
researches the aid of Dr. Schick, a resident in Jerusalem, was of
the greatest value to the Palestine Exploration Fund. In
1878 the German Palestine Society was founded.
The tracing of the walls of Jerusalem has been to a great
extent accomplished, one of the most important discoveries
being made by Messrs. Bliss and Dickie, in 1893, when they
completed the tracing of the course of the oldest wall, on the
south side of the city, discovering an ancient portal which is
probably the valley gate mentioned by Nehemiah. In 1900
the American School of Research was established, and under
its auspices the palace of Omri, Ahab, Jehu and Jeroboam has
been brought to light by Reisner at Samaria. At Gezer, the
Hebrew town was built over the old Canaanite city. Both
were excavated by the lecturer, and many Egyptian articles
dating from Hyksos to Greek times were found. The fre-
quency of figures of Ashtoreth in the Hebrew town shows how
the Israelites continued the religious rites of their predecessors.
Under the Canaanite city were the cave burials of the still
earlier inhabitants, whom we term Amorites. At Jericho,
walls 26 feet high had been laid bare. Other interesting excava-
tions had been at Megiddo, and Ta'anak, Tell Zakaryeh and Beth
Shemesh.
At Mareshah the cemeteries contain painted tombs of the
Greek period, and the plan of the Seleucid town has been com-
pletely made out. The American University Expeditions of
1900 and 1910 have recorded a large region full of buildings of
the late Roman period in North Syria. Other Roman remains
REPORT 13
of importance are the temple and Basilica at Samaria, discovered
by Reisner, and the fine record of the rock tombs at Petra and
the stone cities of Bosra and the Hauran published by Brunnow
and Domaszewski in 1904. Much still remained to be done,
in fact merely a beginning had been made. It was hoped that
the establishment of the recently founded British School of
Archaeology in Jerusalem would be the greatest aid and stimulus
to future work. He would leave it to Professor John Garstang,
the newly appointed Director of the School, who was present
for the purpose, to explain its plans and objects.
Professor Garstang, being called on by the President to deliver
his address, stated the chief objects of the School to be : —
To facilitate the researches of scholars.
To provide instruction and guidance for students.
To train archaeological administrators and excavators.
To assist in every possible way the excavations and explora-
tions of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
The scope of periods and subjects would be unrestricted.
No modern religious or political question nor any personal matter
of religious persuasion will be allowed to affect the policy of the
School.
Arrangements had been concluded for cordial collaboration
with the American School of Research ; in fact, the two bodies
would share a building, the Lord Bute House, just within the
Jaffa Gate. There will be common lecture rooms, museum and
library, and unnecessary duplication of effort would be avoided.
Thus, the British School will make a catalogue survey of all
known archaeological material in Palestine, and the assistance of
volunteers with special tastes and training was needed. The
American School will be responsible for the library. It was
hoped to obtain the co-operation of the French archaeologists
also in the scheme, and this seemed likely to be effected.
The Committee wish to establish a close relationship with
the Universities, and with theological and educational institu-
tions. They are of opinion that many graduates may thus find
useful and interesting work. The scope of the School would
cover the Amorite and Hittite country of the north, but not the
more western parts of Asia Minor. Mesopotamia would be for
the present included.
In reply to a question, Professor Garstang stated that as regards
the study of Assyriology, Professor Clay, of the American School,
14 REPORT
would help all British students, there being no Assyriologist in
England who could go. Another question, as to accommodation
for students in Jerusalem, brought the reply that a hostel would
probably be founded and until then rooms would be taken in
hotels. A vote of thanks to the speakers was passed on the
motion of Professor A. L. Dickie, seconded by Mr. Slotki.
The SEVENTH MEETING of the Session took place at the Univer-
sity on Friday, April soth, at 8 p.m., the President in the chair.
Mr. W. J. Perry delivered an address on " The Origin of Warlike
States."
He stated that the study of Heraldry gives results which go
to verify the theory which he had deduced from the study of
ruling groups, namely, that all over the world, dynasties have
sprung from members of ruling classes, and not spontaneously
in many places. This, if true, leads to the conclusion that all
ruling classes in the world are derived from one original group,
and harmonises with the claim of Professor Elliot Smith that all
civilisation originated in the Egypto-Sumerian region.
The EIGHTH MEETING of the session took place on Friday,
May I4th, at 8 p.m., the President in the chair.
Professor T. Eric Peet delivered an address on "El Amarna,
the City of Egypt's Heretic King." He gave an account of the
main facts of the life of Akhenaten, and showed slides illustrating
the life of the court of El Amarna as shown in the tomb sculptures
of that place, and also exhibited slides of some sculptured figures
of the royal family, discovered in the latest excavations. The
lecturer remarked that the religion of Akhenaten was generally
considered to be a monotheism, but its monotheistic character
was disputed by some, Mr. Peet thought, on rather slight evidence.
It was, at any rate, an attempt to look at things not merely from
an Egyptian point of view, but from that of all mankind.
Mr. Peet's views appear more fully in the current number of
our Journal.
The NINTH MEETING of the session was held at the University
on Monday, May 3ist, at 4-30 p.m., the President in the chair,
The first business of the meeting was to send, on the motion of
Professor Unwin, seconded by Rev. L. W. Grensted, a message
of condolence to Mrs. Burrows, wife of the late Principal of
King's College, London, on her husband's untimely death.
The President then called upon Mr. W. J. Perry to read a
paper communicated by Mr. Northcote W. Thomas on " The
Periplus of Hanno."
REPORT 15
Mr. Thomas pointed out at the outset that one of the difficulties
of the subject is the possible disappearance of islands and capes
which once existed, and the alteration in the courses of rivers.
He then considered the climatic changes that have come over
North-West Africa. In reference to the fiery torrents and the
blazing mountain which Hanno says he saw towards the end of
his outward run, Mr. Thomas gave the following explanation.
"At various times from February to April, that is to say at the
end of the dry season, it is the custom all over negro Africa, so
far as I know, to burn the dry grass and bush, by which is meant
the saplings of a few years' growth. No one who has been in
Africa can doubt that what Hanno saw was the burning of the
bush, probably in April or early in May ; not only does the season
agree with what Hanno would choose for navigation and for
colonisation as the best time of year, but the zoological evidence
is so far as the changed climate will allow us to judge, consistent
with the same hypothesis. The fires seen by Hanno have been
regarded by some as evidence of volcanic action ; but what
volcano would be pouring down floods of lava along a stretch of
coast that would take Hanno a week's run to clear ? The
fiery torrents, which at first sight support the volcano theory,
are in reality so much evidence for the bush-fire hypothesis.
For when the grass on a mountain is fired, the gullies, with their
ranker vegetation, remain untouched ; when some weeks later
they are fired, it is as though streams of fire were flowing down
a mountain side." As regards zoology, Hanno tells us that he
found elephants, hippopotami and crocodiles in a lagoon by the
sea early in his voyage. After discussing the size and capacity
of the ship in which the voyage was made, Mr. Thomas called
attention to two points of fundamental importance. These
are : (a) the meaning attached by the Carthaginians to the
words " Pillars of Heracles," and (b) the position of Cerne.
These points decisively settled, we have nothing but plain sailing
before us. "Now the Carthaginian Herakles was known as
Melcarth ; he had a temple at Cadiz, which was by some later
writers substituted for Gibraltar as one of the Pillars. If that
was the case, the other pillar must have been Cape Spartel, and
the difficulties as to currents in the Straits would not arise.
This view clearly agrees with the distance, 105 miles to Mehediya,
in two days at the rate of 50 miles a day." As to the position
of Cerne, the fundamental point is that beyond it was a lagoon
16 REPORT
with three islands larger than Cerne ; a day's sail brought Hanno
to the end of it, and he found great mountains overhanging the
water, in which dwelt wild men. " Now I take it as axiomatic
that Cerne, only half a mile in circumference, is not necessarily
in existence at the present day, any more than the three islands
in the lagoon, which was part of the course of a river. If the
river has not dried up, it may have shifted its course and left the
islands dry land. But the decisive factor is the mountain
chain ; only in the south of Morocco could Hanno find a river
up which he could sail for a day and find mountains." And the
only river likely to satisfy the conditions is the Wad Draa.
" I therefore identify the Draa with the great river, and place
Cerne between Agadir and Cape Nun, between four and five hun-
dred miles from the Pillars. This solution disregards the datum
that the run from Carthage to the Pillars was equal to the run
from the Pillars to Cerne ; but the terms of the statement are
so indefinite that little is to be gained by making it a factor in
the premises." After giving his own rendering of the Greek of
the Periplus, Mr. Thomas tabulated his identifications as follows :
ANCIENT NAME MODERN NAME REMARKS
Thymaterion ... ... Mehediya ... ... 105 miles, two days
C. Soloeis C. Cantin 134 miles, three days
Lagoon ? a half day
Colonies : Karikonteichos,
Gytte, Akra, Melita,
Arambys San, Mogador, Agadir, and
two more unidentified
Lixua ? Wad Sus, or Wad
Mesa
Cerne Near Wad Asaka ... 79 miles, or two days
Chretes (Chremetes) river Wad Draa
Second river ... ... Wad Sibika
Return to Cerne (possibly from the north, as it is not stated that the
rivers lay south of the island)
Wooded mountains ... C. Verde 937 miles, twelve days
Great gulf Gambia R channel runs SSE ; 70
miles, two days.
Hesperou Keras ... Rio Jeba 230 miles, five days
Theon Ochema ... Kakulima Mt. ... 180 miles, four days
Notou Keras Sherbro River, west
outlet 140 miles, three days
Gorilla Island ... In Sherbro River
After the reading of the paper, Mr. Perry added some comments
as to ancient West African civilization, and a discussion followed.
A hearty vote of thanks to Mr. N. W. Thomas concluded the
business.
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BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS ADDED TO
THE COLLECTION OF THE SOCIETY
SINCE SEPTEMBER, 1919
Books may be borrowed (by members only) by applying to the Treasurer-Secretary at
the Manchester Museum, from whom also the Catalogue published 1913
may be had, price 3d.
Gardiner. A. H. and Langdon, S.1
" The Treaty of Alliance between Hattusili, King of the Hittites, and the
Pharaoh Ramesses II. of Egypt." (Reprint from Journal of Egyptian
Archaeology, vol. VI., 1920, pp. 179-205.)
Gibb Memorial Series2 —
El Khazreji's " History cf the Resuli Dynasty of Yemen.' ' Text (Arabic),
part 2. London, 1918.
The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, vols. IV. and V.8
The Journal of the Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society, 1918-19.
The Journal of the Manchester Geographical Society, vol. XXXIV., 1918.*
The Journal of the Society of Oriental Research, vols. I., II., III., and IV. part i.»
Liverpool Institute of Archaeology.* —
"Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology," vols. I. -III. (completing
our set).
Macler F.—
" Le Texte Armemen de 1'Evangile d'apres Matthieu et Marc," Paris,
1919, pp. 645.
Moscona, T. D.«—
Analecta — ^Egyptiaca — " The Holy and Apostolic Church of Alexandria."
^Ethiopica, " The Story of the Greek Pilgrim Fathers." Appendix on
" The Holy and Orthodox Church of the East," etc., Manchester, 1920,
pp. 40.
" Red Easter in the Dodecanese," Manchester, 1919, pp. 31.
Musee Guimet, Paris.5 —
" Revue de I'histoire des Religions," vols. LXXVI.-LXXIX.
Zervos, S.' —
" Le Dodecanese — Histoire — Services — Droits," pp. 80, map and 322
illustrations.
University of Uppsala.8 —
" Le Monde Oriental," vol. XII., 3.
Herrn D. W. Myhrman's " Ausgabe des KITAB Mu'fo AN-NI'AM WA-
MUBID AN-NIQAM. Kritisch beleuchtet von K.V. Zettersteen)
Uppsala, 1913-"
Scripta Pontificii Instituti Biblici. —
" Orientalia, " Nos. i and 2, Rome, 1920.'
1 Presented by Dr. Gardiner.
2 From the Trustees, Gibb Memorial.
8 Exchange.
4 From Miss K. Qualtrough.
6 From Musee Guimet.
• From Mr. T. D. Moscona.
7 From University of Uppsala.
8 From the Bishop of Salford.
EXCAVATION AT TELL EL-AMARNA.
THE concession of the site of Tell el-Amarna, which has belonged
to the German Orient-Gesellschaft for many years, has passed,
with the event of the war, from the Germans to the Egypt
Exploration Society (late Egypt Exploration Fund). This
transference to an Anglo-American organization is very appro-
priate. The Germans are unable to go on with their work,
their rights have lapsed, and the archaeologists of the Allies
step in. The Germans have of late years found many extremely
interesting antiquities, among them chefs d'ceuvre of Egyptian
art, in the course of their work, several of the most important
of which have gone to Berlin. The museums of Great Britain
and the United States will succeed to the heritage of the Germans,
and the flow of these fine antiquities will be directed in the
direction of Britain and America. The strictly scientific side of
the work is guaranteed by the name of Professor T. E. Peet, of
Liverpool University, who is in charge, assisted by Mr. F. G.
Newton, the well-known archaeological architect, who has worked
in Crete, in Palestine, and in Sardinia with Dr. Duncan Mackenzie,
the colleague of Sir Arthur Evans at Knossos. It is hoped that
the great importance of this work, with its possibilities of epoch-
making discoveries either of more artistic triumphs of the age
of Akhenaten, of inscriptions throwing further light on his
religious monotheistic heresy, of (possibly) more cuneiform
tablets like those found in 1887, which have illuminated for us
a whole period of early Palestinian and Syrian history, or of
(again possibly) new finds of Mycenaean ceramic like those
discovered there by Professor Petrie — will attract practical help
in the shape of donations and subscriptions that are badly
needed if the work is to be carried on in worthy succession to
that of the Germans. These should be sent to the Treasurer
at the Offices of the Society, at 13, Tavistock Square, London,
W.C.I. The Honorary Secretary of the Society, Dr. H. R. Hall,
will always be glad to answer any queries with regard to the
work (address H. R. Hall, Esq., D.Litt., F.S.A., The British
Museum, London, W.C.i.).
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NAMES
BY MAURICE A. CANNEY.
MY concern at present is with personal names. Books have
been written on the origin, formation and meaning of proper
names ; but so far as I know, no book has been written on what
may be called for want of a better description the philosophy
of personal names. Articles have appeared in Hastings' En-
cyclopedia of Religion and Ethics and elsewhere,1 but for the
most part much of the material is still scattered. When I first
became interested in certain ideas and customs relating to names,
I imagined that they were peculiar to one or two peoples. But
on investigating the matter I have discovered that the same
and other ideas and customs have prevailed among many peoples.
I have found, in fact, that the subject is a far larger one than
I can hope to deal with fully in one paper. I propose therefore
for the most part to confine myself to a few aspects of it.
In the first place, note should be taken of the mysterious
virtue which many peoples ascribe to a name. Morris Jastrow,
Jr., in reference to Babylonia and Assyria, remarks (The Civilisa-
tion of Babylonia and Assyria, 1915, p. 428) that " to have a
name," according to ideas widely prevalent in antiquity, was
to exist. Hence in an Assyrian Creation tablet, to express the
idea of non-existence of heaven and earth, it is said that they
were not named. Among the ancient Egyptians a peculiar
potency was ascribed to a name. " Nothing could exist without
one, and the obliteration of a name meant annihilation for its
owner. The conferring of a name could give life to an inanimate
object. To know the secret name of a god was to become his
equal " (Marian Edwardes and Lewis Spence, Dictionary of
Non-Classical Mythology, p. 21, N. i). Among the Hebrews,
when the prophets wish to describe a person or place by its real
character they often say that he or it will be called or named accord-
ingly (Isa. i. 26, iv. 3, xxx. 7, Ixii. 4, 12, Ezk. xlviii. 35, etc.).*
1 F. C. Conybeare's Myth, Magic, and Morals, 1909, contains an interesting
chapter (xiii.) on the " Magic use of Names "; and there is a valuable section
" Personennamen " in R. Andree's Ethnogaphische Parallelen und Vergleiche
(1878, pp. 165-184). Since the above was written, Edward Clodd has published
a work, Magic in Names (1920).
* S. R. Driver, Deut. in ICC ; cp. Kirkpatrick on Ps. v. n.
22 MAURICE A. CANNEY
In Isa. xviii. 7, the Temple is called " the place of Jehovah's
name." In another well-known passage (Prov. xviii. 10) it is
said that " the name of Jehovah is a strong fortress, to which
the righteous runs and is safe." C. H. Toy explains that the
name is equivalent to the person " because it expressed his
nature and qualities (as early names commonly did), and because
in very ancient times the name was regarded (perhaps in con-
sequence of its significance) as having an objective significance
and as identical with its possessor, and the locution which thence
arose survived in later times when the old crude conception
had vanished " (Proverbs in ICC). Giesebrecht defines a name
as meaning, according to the ancient conception, " a something
parallel to the man, relatively independent of its bearer, but of
great importance for his weal or his woe, a something which
at once describes and influences its bearer " (Die alttest. Schatzung
des Gottesnamens, 1901, p. 94). But the idea of the objective
significance of a name is not confined to Orientals. The Eskimos
of North America, for instance, " say that a man consists of
three parts, his body, his soul, and his name, and of these the
last mentioned alone achieves immortality " (D. G. Brinton,
Religions of Primitive Peoples, 1897, p. 92). Among the Ancient
Britons to be without a name was considered a very serious
matter, for they " seem to have held the primitive theory that
the name and the soul are the same " (C. Squire, Celtic Myth
and Legend, p. 263). John Rhys calls attention in Celtic Folklore
(1901, vol. ii., p. 625 /.) to a striking similarity between the
Welsh enw, " name," and enaid " soul," and between the Irish
ainm " name " and anim " soul." He thinks that such words
are all to be referred to the same origin in the Aryan word for
" breath or breathing," and infers that " the Celts, and certain
other widely separated Aryans, unless we should rather say
the whole of the Aryan family, were once in the habit of closely
associating both the soul and one's name with the breath of
life." He puts the interesting question : "In the case of the
savages who name their children at birth, is the reason ever
advanced that a name must be given to a child in order to make
it breathe, or, at least, in order to facilitate its breathing?" In
his account of the Borneo head-hunters of the East Indian
Archipelago, W. H. Furness writes : " The receiving of a name
is really the starting-point of life ; and the bestowal of a name
by the parents is probably the most serious of parental duties,
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NAMES 23
and to be performed with ceremonies proportioned to their rank.
So essential is the ceremony of naming that in the enumeration
of a family an unnamed child is not counted ; and should a child
die before the ceremony of naming, a Kay an or Kenyah mother
would mourn for it no more deeply than had it been stillborn.
This is true even when an unnamed child lives to be nearly a
year old." (The Home-Life of Borneo Head-hunters, p. 18.)
It is not surprising that the name of a god is a power in itself
or at least a symbol of power. Lenormant notes that " in all
the religions of ancient Asia the mysterious Name was considered
a real and divine being, who had a personal existence and exclusive
power over both nature and the world of spirits " (Chaldean
Magic, p. 104). In Assyrian legend when the god Marduk
triumphs over the monster Tiamat, all the gods assemble to
celebrate the great deed. " They bestow fifty glorious names
upon him, the names symbolising the attributes of Marduk, on
whom, as the head of the pantheon, the qualities of all the gods
and goddesses grouped around him, as courtiers gather around
the royal throne, are thus heaped. Enlil steps forward and
bestows his name as ' lord ' upon Marduk. The bestowal of
the name, according to the prevalent view in antiquity, carries
with it the power and position of the one bearing it. The god
Ea follows EnhTs example, and thus without a conflict the rule
passes to Marduk " (Jastrow, Civ., p. 2I2/.). The name has a
magic potency. Among the Babylonians, the names of the
gods were employed in exorcising demons. In Egyptian legend
there is a well-known story which relates that when Isis wished
to be equal to the great god Ra, she could realize her wish only
by gaining knowledge of his secret name. " This Ra was not
willing to divulge, but he was old at this time, and Isis got him
into her power, for she formed a serpent from his slaverings and
the earth and set it in the path of the god, who was bitten and
brought near death ; then Isis undertakes to heal him by her
magic powers if he will tell her that which she desires to know,
and after putting her off with his other names, Khepera, Ra, and
Tern, he finally consents that ' it shall pass from his bosom to
hers.' So Isis became endowed with supreme godhead " (Marian
Edwards and Lewis Spence, Diet, of Non-Classical Mythology,
p. 93 ; see further, Erman, Handbook of Egyptian Religion,
p. 154 ff. ; Naville, The Old Egyptian Faith, p. 229 #). In the
Hebrew Old Testament there is an expression which occurs very
24 MAURICE A. CANNEY
frequently, " to call by the name of Jehovah." As Dr. J. M.
Powis Smith says (Zephaniah in ICC), this idiom "probably had
its origin in the cultus and dates from the time when the mere
utterance of the divine name per se was believed to exercise a
kind of coercion upon the deity himself. To possess the name
of the deity was to hold a certain power over him and thus,
within certain clearly defined limits, to make him subservient
to the worshipper's will."
We find in a Christian papyrus of the third or fourth century
an explanation of some of the most powerful Biblical names,
such as Jo, Ariel, Azael, Jonathan, Joseph. This, as Camden
M. Cobern says (The New Archaeological Discoveries, (2) 1917), may
have been used as an amulet of protection. Again, in a Christian
exorcism recently published " the ancient writer attempts to
put magical bonds upon an enemy who he supposed was working
evil through the ' spirit of evil whom the angel Gabriel released
Irom fiery chains.' The ' name ' of Jesus and certain ' scripture '
narrating the power of our Lord in Galilee is ' proclaimed ' to
this evil spirit, and he is bidden to flee to the woods on the
mountain top and leave the tormented Christian alone " (Cobern).
Cobern points out that " Jews, Christians, and heathen, alike,
believed in the power of magical names, and therefore Hebrew
archangels, together with Greek, Roman and Egyptian deities,
appear most confusedly mixed up in some of these conjurations.
L. R. Farnell (The Higher Aspects of Greek Religion, 1912) remarks
that this belief in the magic or mystic power of a divine name
was current among the old Hellenes. The Hellenes employed
the name in conjuration or invocation, " though there is reason
for thinking that in their more virile period they were less in
bondage to it than were the surrounding peoples."
It is a common practice to keep the real name of the Divine
Being secret. Only priests and other privileged persons might
know the name. Ordinary people must not pronounce it. The
idea according to many writers was to prevent rivals or ad-
versaries from learning and making use of it. D. G. Brinton
notes (op. cit., p. 98) that in America " the Choctaw Indians
regarded the name of their highest divinity as self-existing,
essential, and unspeakable." When it was necessary to refer
to him, they adopted a circumlocution. Speaking of the tribes
of the North- West Amazons in America, T. Whiff en says : " One
of the first difficulties met with when dealing in detail with the
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NAMES 25
religion of these peoples is their refusal to use the true name
of any spirit or deity. This has root in the same reason that
ordains they shall never disclose their own names, nor voluntarily
except on rare occasions, that is without questioning, the name
of their tribe " (The North-West Amazons, 1915, p. 220). S.
Reinach points out (Orpheus, 1909) that among the Romans
" the true names of the divinities were taboo, because had they
been revealed, it would have been possible for enemies to invoke
them. This is why our knowledge is confined in the main to
epithets, which do duty for divine names. Rome itself had a
secret name, used in the most solemn invocations. The secret
of this name was so well kept that we do not know it to this
day" (cp. De Quincey, Collected Works, A. & C. Black, 1896-7,
i., p. 88 N.). The same writer notes that " the so-called names
of the Gallic deities, of which we know several hundreds, were
really nothing but epithets ; if these gods had actual names,
we can only conclude that they were kept secret " (p. 120). It is
well known that we do not know for certain the true pronunciation
of the Hebrew divine name JHVH. During the period of the
Second Temple, this name " was declared too sacred for utterance,
except by the priests in certain parts of the service, and for
mysterious use by specially initiated saints. Instead, Adonai,
4 the Lord,' was substituted for it in the Biblical reading, a
usage which has continued for over two thousand years " (K.
Kohler). In Rabbinic literature we find that " reverence for
the Deity caused the Jew to avoid not only the utterance of the
holy Name itself, but even the common use of its substitute
Adonai. Therefore still other synonyms were introduced, such
as ' Master of the Universe/ ' the Omnipotence ' (ha Geburah),
' King of the king of kings ' (under Persian influence — as the
Persian ruler called himself the King of Kings) ; and in Hasidean
circles it became customary to invoke God as ' our Father ' and
' our Father in heaven.' ' Kohler suggests that the rather strange
appellations for God, ' Heaven ' and (dwelling) ' Place ' (ha
Makom), seem to originate in certain formulas of the oath. In
the latter name the rabbis even found hints of God's omni-
presence : "As space — Makom — encompasses all things, so does
God encompass the world instead of being encompassed by
it " (Jewish Theology, 1918, x.). E. Kautzsch thinks that
perhaps " in the Decalogue the commandment not to take
Jahweh's name ' in vain ' meant originally that men were not
26 MAURICE A. CANNEY
to compel action on the part of the sacred name by invoking it "
(Hastings' DB, extra vol., p. 6406, N.}. So also Amos, vi. 10, is
explained by Giesebrecht (op. cit., p. 128), according to Kautzsch,
as " expressing a dread of provoking the fiercely enraged deity
still further by uttering his name (cf. also viii. 3)."
Ordinary individuals also often have a secret name. A. J. N.
Tremearne notes (Hausa Superstitions and Customs, 1913, p. 178)
that in Africa " all Hausa children have a secret and a public
name, the first being known only to themselves." Speaking
of the natives of Northern India, W. Crooke says : "In any case,
the name is a sacred portion of the infant's being, and to ensure
that it may not be communicated to some malevolent stranger
who may work evil by its means, one name is conferred for
everyday use, while another is whispered in the child's ear, and
by it no one dares to address it " (Natives of Northern India,
1907, p. 199).
Let us turn now to a curious custom which proves to be extra-
ordinarily widespread — that of change of name. My interest
in this custom was first aroused some years ago by certain state-
ments in the Old and New Testaments. It has been re-awakened
by many statements found in other writings. I will take the
Biblical statements first.
In Gen. xxxii. 28, it is said, " Thy name (Jacob) shall be called
no more Jacob, but Israel." In Exod. vi. 3, even God is re-
presented as changing his own name.1 In Num. xiii. 16, it is
said : "And Moses called Hoshea, the son of Nun, Joshua " (cp.
Deut. xxxii. 44). In Judges vi. 32, it is stated : " Therefore on
that day he called him (Gideon) Jerubbaal " (cp. vii. i). In
//. Sam. xii. 25, we read : " And the Lord God loved him
(Solomon) ; and he sent by the hand of Nathan the prophet, and
he called his name Jedidiah, for the Lord's sake." In //. Kings
xxiii. 34, we are told that " Pharaoh-necoh made Eliakim, the
son of Josiah, king in the room of Josiah his father, and changed
his name to Jehoiakim " (similarly II. Chron. xxxvi. 4). In
II. Kings xxiv. 17, it is said that the king of Babylon made
Mattaniah, brother of the father of Jehoiachin, king in place of
Jehoiachin, and changed his name to Zedekiah. The king
known as Uzziah appears also as Azariah, and Marti has suggested
that his name was changed when he ascended the throne. In
1 G. A. Barton notes (The Religion of Israel, 1918, p. 58) that, " in the ancient
East the introduction of a new name meant the introduction of a new deity."
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NAMES 27
Dan. i. 6, it is said that the names of Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael
and Azariah were changed by the prince of the eunuchs to
Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. In Isa. Ixii. 2,
it is said : " And thou shalt be called by a new name which
Jehovah's mouth will determine." In Matt. x. 2, we read of
" Simon, who is called Peter " (cp. John i. 42), and in Acts xiii. 9
of " Saul, who is also Paul."
These passages seem to indicate clearly that the practice of
changing the name was prevalent among the Hebrews and some
of the surrounding peoples. A change of character or of status
was marked or symbolized by a change of name. That a change
of status should be so marked may seem natural enough. It
may seem natural that a conqueror or overlord should change
the name of subject princes. It may seem natural that a
conqueror should adopt a more potent name for himself. " When
the successful general Pul usurped the throne of Assyria he
adopted the name of one of the most famous of the kings of the
older dynasty, Tiglath-pileser. His successor, another usurper,
called Ulula, similarly adopted the name of Shalmaneser, another
famous king of the earlier dynasty. It is probable that Sargon,
who was also a usurper, derived his name from Sargon of Akkad,
and that his own name was originally something else " (A. H.
Sayce, Babylonians and Assyrians, 1900, p. 46 /.). The same
practice is found among the Chinese. " Emperors and their
relations have in all ages changed their names just as the common
people. Many Sons of Heaven changed theirs at their appoint-
ment to the dignity of heir-apparent or at their accession, and
Suh Tsung of the T'ang dynasty did so five times before he
mounted the throne " (De Groot, The Religious System of China,
vol. vi., p. 1137). It is natural that slaves (as among the Arabs)
should change their names on manumission.1 It may seem
natural also that soldiers should have changed their names on
entering the Roman Army (cp. Adolf Deissmann, Light from
the Ancient East, p. 170).
The Hebrew word for name is often used, in reference to
Jehovah, in the sense of character. It is not surprising, there-
fore, that a change of character should be felt to necessitate a
change of name. Jacob became Israel, Hoshea became Joshua,
and Solomon became Jedidiah, because in each case a meta-
1 Cp. H. Ling Roth. The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo, ii.,
P- 275.
28 MAURICE A. CANNEY
morphosis in character had taken place. These are known
examples. It may be presumed that there were many other
cases in which the change has not been recorded. Possibly
the names of the Hebrew prophets as preserved to us are not
always the names which they originally bore. It has been
suggested by Professor Whitehouse that Isaiah, for instance,
meaning " Yahweh has helped," was perhaps not his original
name. It may have been assumed in reference to his prophetic
vision and call. It is certainly a fact that many personal names
in Hebrew point to characteristics or circumstances which can
hardly have been present in infancy. If Jacob means " sup-
planter," which is of course doubtful, the bearer of the name
can hardly have been so called before he began to practise the
art of supplanting. If, again, it is equivalent to Jakob1 el and
means " God follows," i.e., " God rewards," the bearer of the
name can hardly have borne it before God began to show marks
of His special favour. The name Saul means " asked." He
may of course have been so called because his parents asked or
prayed for a son. But the narratives that record his elevation
to the kingship suggest that his name is closely linked with the
circumstances in which Israel became a monarchy. It may be
presumed, I think, that this was a new name. Saul, after he
is anointed king by Samuel, is told by the prophet that he will
meet a band of prophets, who will be playing musical instruments
and prophesying. Then the Spirit of the Lord will come mightily
upon him, and he will prophesy with them and will be turned
into another man (7. Sam. x. 5 /.). To many it has seemed
strange that an obscure person should have been chosen
to be king of Israel. But this narrative seems to indicate
that the king was a man who was prepared or fore-ordained
for his new calling by a change of character. Saul was
transformed. The Saul who was made king was not the man
he had been before.
The metamorphosis of Saul is particularly interesting because
he is brought into association with the " sons of the prophets."
From II. Kings vi., it appears that these " sons of the prophets "
formed communities of their own and lived in wooden dwellings.1
Their settlements have been described as training-schools for
religious purposes. ' To these ' colleges ' may probably be
1 One cannot help thinking of the Men's House of so-called Secret Societies.
See Hulton Webster, Primitive Secret Societies, 1908.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NAMES 29
traced the preservation of national traditions and the beginnings
of historical literature in Israel " (W. T. Davison in Hastings'
DB in one vol., p. 758). D. B. Macdonald suggests (The Religious
Attitude and Life in Islam, p. 16) that such prophets played the
part of the wandering gleeman, scalds, bards, and minstrels of
mediaeval Europe. It may be presumed, I think, in any case
that there were prophetic and other guilds or orders into which
novitiates were initiated and in which they went through a
course of training. We have already seen that Saul was to be
turned into a new man. How was the metamorphosis effected ?
Apparently by initiation into the mysteries of a prophetic guild.
In John iii. 3, Jesus says to Nicodemus, " Verily, verily, I say
unto thee, except a man be born anew, he cannot see the king-
dom of God." From the references to a change of name in the
Old Testament and New Testament, we may infer also perhaps
an acquaintance with initiation ceremonies in which the novitiate
received a new name.
The practice of taking new names is found also among the
Arabs. " Names can be changed," says Professor Margoliouth
(Hastings' E.R.E.), " either by those who hold them or by some
person whose authority they recognise ; numerous cases are
recorded in which the Prophet changed the names of his followers,
and occasionally we read of the sovereign doing this at a later
period ; Omar it is said thought of compelling all Muslims to
take the names of prophets." Margoliouth adds that converts
to Islam " even in these days usually change their names, ordin-
arily selecting one which belongs to an Islamic saint." Burton
states that when a man becomes a Fakir or Darwish, he is re-
generated and assumes a new name (Al-Madinah and Mecca,
Bohn, new ed., i. p. 14, N. 3). We find the same practice in
India. The Mehtars, the caste of sweepers and scavengers,
worship a saint named Valmiki, who was originally a hunter
named Ratnakar. When he was purified and became a saint,
Brahma changed his name from Ratnakar to Valmiki. Among
the Jews " names are still changed on conversion ; thus a Jewish
convert to Christianity is given a new name, such as Paul, while
a convert to Judaism receives a patriarchal name (Abraham,
Sarah or the like)." The quotation is from I. Abrahams' article
in Hastings' E.R.E. The original significance of the custom as
part of the initiation into a society in which the novitiate was
metamorphosed has been forgotten.
30 MAURICE A CANNEY
We have another example of change of name among later Jews.
In the Middle Ages a person who was dangerously sick would
change his name. The explanation usually given is that he did
so in the hope that the Angel of Death, who summons persons
by name would be baffled by the change (so Joseph Jacobs, The
Jewish Encyclopaedia, ix., 1905, p. 159). The custom is known
as " meshanneh shem," and is referred to in the Talmud. Here
again the original significance of the custom seems to have been
orgotten, and a new explanation invented. The custom is as a
matter of fact widespread. Among the Todas of Southern India
when a man is ill, change of name is sometimes recommended
by a diviner (W. H. R. Rivers, The Todas, 1906, p. 625). In
Posso, a district of Central Celebes (Malay Archipelago), when a
child is very sickly, a new name is bestowed on it (Frazer, Folklore
in the O.T., p. 172). Edwin H. Gomes notes (Seventeen Years
among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo, 1911, p. 102) that it is not unusual
to find among the Dyaks children of seven or eight years old
who have not yet received a name. " Even when a name is
given to a child, it is often changed for some reason or other.
The Dyaks have a great obj ection to uttering the name of a dead
person, so if the namesake of a child dies, at once a new name
is chosen. Again, if a child is liable to frequent attacks of
illness, it is no uncommon thing for parents to change the name
two or three times in the course of a year." The reason for
this, says the writer, " is that all sickness and death is supposed
to be caused by evil spirits, who are put off the scent by this
means " (p. 103). Among the Swedish Lapps, according to
Hogstrom, when a child was ill, the Lapps changed its name
(C. J. Billson in Hastings' E.R.E.). Among the Ainu of Japan,
if a child is of a weakly disposition, its name is changed. John
Batchelor (The Ainu and Their Folk-lore, p. 244) mentions the
case of a sickly child, whose name was changed by her parents
and friends no less than four times." Among the Chukchee, a
tribe in north-eastern Asia, " sometimes the name is changed
one or more times if the child does not thrive, but it is only a
shaman or ' knowing person ' who can perform the necessary
ceremony " (M. A. Czaplicka, Aboriginal Siberia, 1914, p. 135).
W. H. Furness, on meeting a native of Borneo, whom he thought
he had seen before, but whose name was different, asked whether
he was not the same person. ' You are quite right, Tuan,"
replied the native, " but since you were here I have been exceed-
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NAMES 31
ingly sick — so sick that the evil Spirits were trying to make my
soul wander away from my body (and here his voice dropped to
a whisper) ; so I changed my name ; now they will not know
where to find me " (The Home-Life of Borneo Head-hunters,
p. 16). C. Rose and W. McDougall say that in Borneo " the
name first given to any person is rarely carried through life ;
it is usually changed after any severe illness or serious accident."
This, they say, is "in order that the evil influences that have
pursued him may fail to recognise him under the new name "
(The Pagan Tribes of Borneo, 1912, i., p. 79).
Names are changed also if they resemble those of dead persons.
Among the Chinooks of North America " near relatives often
change their name under the impression (according to Bancroft)
that spirits will be attracted back to earth if they hear familiar
names often repeated " (H. H. Bancroft, The Native Races of the
Pacific States of North America, i., 1875, p. 248). ' The principal
cause of the change of name in grown-up persons among the
Kanowits is the objection people have to uttering the name of
a dead person " (Brooke Low, quoted by H. Ling Roth, ii., p. 275).
Again, among the Nicobarese (of Nicobar, one of the East India
Islands), it is common for a mourner " to assume some new name
for him or herself, which, in a great measure, accounts for the
fact that some individuals have borne several different names
in the course of their lives " (J. G. Frazer, Folk-lore in the O.T.,
p. 236). C. G. Seligmann tells us (The Melanesians of British
New Guinea, 1910, p. 629) that among the Southern Massim
" the names of the dead become taboo immediately after death.
This avoidance of the name of a dead person is carried so far that
their names are actually dropped from the common spoken
language of the district while their memory lasts. As a result
of this many words are permanently lost, or revived with modified
or new meanings." Even common words. For " the new
name given to a man or woman on the death of his or her eponym
was, and still very generally is, that of some object of common
use, and when a person to whom a name of this sort has been
given dies his eponymous object must be given a new name "
(p. 630). It may well be doubted, I think, whether fear of
departed spirits is the true explanation of this custom.1 Rather,
1 Freud's psychological explanation of this fear of or hostility to departed
spirits (Totem and Taboo, 1919) is ingenious but not convincing. It is based,
moreover, on an uncritical use of his ethnological authorities.
32 MAURICE A. CANNEY
it may be presumed that for some reason or other the name has
become sacred, like the name of a god, and may not be " taken
in vain."
It is well known that adolescence marks a distinctly new
stage in life. If primitive folk were not aware of the real nature
or the correct explanation of some of the changes that take
place, they recognised at least that boys and girls were in process
of becoming men and women. It was realised that they must
be given a new position in tribal society. The assumption of
this new position involved certain ceremonies of initiation,
amongst which we often find the bestowal of a new name. John
Rhys notes that " many, perhaps most, of the nations who name
their children at their birth, have those names changed when
the children grow up. That is done when a boy has to be initiated
into the mysteries of his tribe or of a guild, or it may be when he
has achieved some distinction in war. In most instances, it involves
a serious ceremony and the intervention of the wise man, whether
the medicine-man of a savage system, or the priest of a higher
religion. In the ancient Wales of the Mabinogion, and in pagan
Ireland, the name-giving was done, subject to certain conditions,
at the will and on the initiative of the druid, who was at the same
time tutor and teacher of the youth to be renamed " (Celtic Folk-
lore, 1901, vol. ii., p. 630 /.). In his account of the interior
tribes of East Africa, Karl Weule (Native Life in East Africa,
1909, p. 280) writes as follows : " As is often the case with
primitive peoples, and with the Japanese at the present day, we
find that every individual on being formally admitted to the
duties and responsibilities of adult life assumes a new name.
The natives hereabouts do not know or have forgotten the original
significance of this change, but we are not likely to be wrong in
supposing that the new name also means a new person, who
stands in quite a different relation to his kinsmen and his tribe
from his former one." Much the same thing is found among the
Kurnai of South-East Australia. " In the Turrbal tribe a name
was usually given to a child when about a week old. It was either
the name of a place, or a bird, or an animal, or fish. Another
name was given to a boy when he was made a young man. But
a girl retained her child's name through life. When a man was
thirty or forty he received another name. They were never
named after their father or mother " (A. W. Howitt, The Native
Tribes of South-East Australia, 1904, pp. 736-9). In the Urabunna
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NAMES 33
tribe of Central Australia each man has two names. One of
these is given to him by his father when he is a little child, the
other is given to him by the father's father when he is initiated "
(B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, The Northern Tribes of Central
Australia, 1904, p. 582). Among the Kurnai of Gippsland,
Australia, a youth receives a new name when he is initiated into
manhood. " The child's name became a * secret name ' when
the individual subsequently acquired a new one at initiation,
or as an elder. To mention the secret name would be a serious
breach of custom and good manners " (L. Fison and A. W. Howitt,
Kamilaroi and Kurnai, 1880, p. 191).
A. L. Cureau has much that is interesting to say about change
of name in Negro society. ' The awakening of the reproductive
functions is considered by the African Negro as a new birth, the
dawning of a personality distinct from that of childhood. Up
to that time the boy is regarded as blended with his father's
existence, but after puberty he becomes a new individual "
(Savage Man in Central Africa, 1915, p. 1677.). The transition
from childhood to manhood is a renewal of the individual which
is marked by various customs as a true and perfect metamor-
phosis. " To begin with, the person concerned appears clothed
from this time on — at least, as much so as local fashions permit —
and he changes his name." In some tribes the new name is
chosen arbitrarily, while in others it follows a rule. " Moreover,
various practices and ceremonies surround this entrance into the
new life, for it is a sort of initiation, in a vaguely religious form,
and may consist variously of antics, instruction, advice, and
admission into a sort of college or association." Cureau remarks
that " the first investigators who noticed that certain classes of
individuals in Negro society appeared to be different from the
common herd hastened to say ' secret societies ' " (p. 323). But
he thinks that " secret societies " suggests to us preconceived
notions, and that the true state of affairs is much simpler. " Our
positive and indisputable information in regard to this problem
is very slight. We know that at a fixed period of life, near the
age of puberty, certain young people, sometimes the males only,
and sometimes females as well, are taken from their villages and
secluded in a remote part of the bush for an indefinite time.
It seems that these secluded persons are not all placed in the
same class, but are divided into different colleges." We have
no exact knowledge about this peculiarity, but from what we do
34 MAURICE A. CANNEY
know we can make certain deductions. " What is important
and indubitable is that the seclusion almost always begins by a
sham representation of death, in which the subject either feigns
to sink down unconscious, or some stupefying, intoxicating, or
hallucinating drug is administered to him " (p. 324). 1 Whatever
happens, the common people must be prevented from finding
out the mysterious secrets. " The adepts are finally supposed
to be resurrected, and then they return to the village ; but they
carry the idea of resurrection to such an extent that they no
longer recognise their former companions or their brothers,
fathers, or mothers. Last of all, we must note the use between
adepts of a conventional form of speech, which is very rudimentary
and appears to be either an archaic dialect or a rude imitation of
the common language " (p. 3247.). The same idea of a simulated
death and a re-birth seems to be found in Melanesian society.
W. H. Rivers thinks " it is quite clear that ideas concerning death
are closely associated with the Tamate societies. Not only does
the word tamate mean " ghost " or " dead man," but in the
ceremony of initiation there is evidence of the representation of
death and return to life. Thus, the beating of the novice and
the destruction of his house during initiation is very suggestive
of a ceremonial death, and so is the wailing of his female relatives
when the candidate leaves them " (The History of Melanesian
Society, 1914, vol. I., p. 127) .2
When a person is to change his nature, he dies and is re-born
into a new order. A youth is transformed into a mature man
or elder, a commoner into a chief or aristocrat, a medicine-man
into a priest or prophet, and even a sick into a sound person by
re-birth. I have mentioned the metamorphosis at puberty.
The same kind of metamorphosis " offers the male citizen an
additional opportunity of transforming himself, of emerging
from the crowded ranks of the servile herd, and of taking his
place in the governing class " (Cureau). Bancroft remarks
that among the so-called Snakes of California " any great feat
performed by a warrior, which adds to his reputation and renown,
such as scalping an enemy, or successfully stealing his horses,
is celebrated by a change of name " (Native Races, i., 1875, p. 438).
1 Hutton Webster (op. cit., p. 179 f.) notes that in the Congo region of Africa
the initiation ceremonies for boys at puberty are supervised by fetish-doctors.
2 Cp. the account of Australian initiation ceremonies in J. G. Frazer's Totemism
and Exogamy, 1910, i., p. 44.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NAMES 35
Among certain peoples there is a curious institution known as
the Sweathouse, and the practice of taking a sweat-bath is not
uncommon. Among the Ojibwa of North America, " during
the process of purgation, the candidate's thoughts must dwell
upon the seriousness of the course he is pursuing and the sacred
character of the new life he is about to assume " (Hoffman in
Seventh Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethnol., p. 204, quoted by Hutton Web-
ster, Primitive Secret Societies, 1908, p. 18, N. i). R. Andree
(Ethnographische Paralleled und Vergleiche, 1878, p. 175) mentions
that among a certain tribe in Kadiak Island, North America,
when a man is affianced, he takes a sweat-bath with his future
father-in-law, and henceforth bears his name. Speaking of
China, De Groot remarks that to improve the fortune by changing
the name is an old custom. " About sixteen hundred years ago
Koh Hung wrote : ' Lao-tsze has often changed the name which
he bore in his childhood and maturity and Tan was not the only
name he had. The following was the reason why he did so :
the Canon of the Nine Divisions of the World and of the Numbers
Three and Five, as also the Yuen ch'en king, say that there are
in every human life conjunctions of dangers ; and when these
conjunctions occur, life may be prolonged and dangers overcome
by changing the names of childhood and maturity, and thus
remaining in concordance with the Universal Breath. Even at
the present day many persons who have the Tao act in this wise ' '
(The Religious System of China, vol. vi., p. H37).1
Consider now the case of prophets and priests. "It is at
their rulers' reputation for holiness," says Cureau (op. cit., p. 326)
that primitive men have always paused, while waiting until
future ages should educate their consciences, as has not yet
occurred among either the Negroes or ourselves. But that
this sacred character may influence the multitude, the one who
assumes it must be invested with a halo of religious ceremony,
must impress the credulous common people, dazzle their imagina-
tion, and show them that the governing caste consists of superior
beings verging upon the superhuman. It is true that these
beings come from the same surroundings as the populace itself ;
but they must be thought of as dead to their original condition
and re-born to a higher one." Hutton Webster notes that
1 This passage is interesting in connection with John Rhys' suggestion (men-
tioned above) that the Celts and other widely separated Aryans seem to have
associated the name with the breath of life.
36 MAURICE A. CANNEY
" among the various tribes on the Gold Coast and Slave Coast,
applicants for membership in the priestly orders serve a novitiate
for several years, and learn the various secrets of the craft.
Dancing, sleight-of-hand, and ventriloquism are important
subjects in the course. Some instruction in the healing art is
also imparted. Novices are taught a new language and after
their consecration as priests are given a new name " (p. 176).
Speaking of the Orphic mysteries, Jane E. Harrison (Prolegomena
to the Study of Greek Religion, 1903, p. 594) writes : " In the
highest grades of initiation not only was there a new birth but
also a new name given, a beautiful custom still preserved in
the Roman Church."
I come now to re-birth after sickness. In reference to Central
Africa, Cureau writes as follows : " In a general way the Natives
hold that every serious event in physical life is equivalent to
death followed by resurrection. When a man recovers from an
illness, or escapes some peril to his life, he is considered in popular
parlance to ' have made a new skin.' He is no longer the same
person : nominally he is someone else, and this resurrected
individual often changes his name in order to emphasize the fact
that he is another man " (p. 167). Among the Ojibwa Indians
of America, one of the most important duties of members of
certain magical fraternities or secret societies is the healing of
the sick. ' The close relationship which the members are
believed to have with the spirits gives them much consideration
as workers in magic. Part of the initiatory training consists
in the study of the traditional pharmacopoeia of the society.
The belief in the mysterious powers of the members is illustrated
by the common custom of the Midewiwin and Mitawit societies
of initiating a child who has been under the charge of the healers.
The patient is brought into the sacred structure, or lodge, where
the evil manidos can be expelled from the body. If the child
is restored to health, he is regarded as a regularly initiated
member, though additional instruction is always given him
when he reaches maturity " (Hutton Webster, p. 179 /.). We
may take it as certain that the child received a new name.
Frazer notes (Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, p. 319) that some
Eskimos " take new names when they are old, hoping thereby
to get a new lease of life."
It seems evident that the idea running through some of these
customs involving change of name is really that of re-birth.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NAMES 37
When a boy becomes a man he is born again. When a commoner
becomes a chief, he is born again. When a man becomes a
priest or prophet, he is born again. When a person is ill and
recovers, he is born again. Full admission into the new life
depends upon the performance of various ceremonies, the initia-
tion into certain mysteries. Whatever may have been thought
about a future life in another world beyond the grave, there has
been in all ages and among many peoples a belief that in this life
and in this world it is possible to bury the old self and bring to
birth a new one.
To live again in this life, one must be born again. One must
be named again. Birth and re-birth having so much in common,
it is probable that rites peculiar to the one came to be transferred
to the other. Among the ancient Mexicans, for instance, a child
seems to have been re-born five days after birth. We are told
that " the second bath of the child, on the fifth day after birth,
was made the occasion of a great ceremony. After the midwife,
who acted the part of priestess, had poured water over the child's
head, she harangued the powers of darkness, adjuring them to
depart, for ' this our child lives anew and is born again ; once
more it is purified ; once more it lives through the grace of our
Mother, Chalchihuitlicue ' ' (Folklore, xviii., 1907, p. 261 /.).
Among the Ainu, at the name-giving ceremony, a boy is often
presented with a wine-cup. Batchelor (op. cit., p. 247) thinks
" the presentation of a wine-cup would seem to convey rather
the idea of priesthood, and indicate that libations are to be
offered with it, for the principal function of a priest (the head of
every family is a priest among the Ainu) seems to be the offering
of libations of wine." But it is more probable, I think, that the
cup represents the draught taken by a candidate for re-birth,
the elixir of life.
THE PROBLEM OF AKHENATON
BY T. ERIC PEET.
No event in Egyptian history appeals more strongly to popular
imagination and interest than the so-called religious revolution
of Amenophis IV., or Akhenaton. The reasons of this are not
far to seek, and we have but to open the text books to find such
alluring phrases as " the world's first individual " and " the
anticipator of much that is best in Christianity " applied to the
reformer. When we come, however, to ask exactly how much
is known of the nature and causes of the revolution we find
that here, as in most other Egyptian problems, our knowledge
amounts to very little, and that we have been in the habit of
taking a great deal for granted. This has become the more
apparent during the last ten years, for the whole question of
Akhenaton's reform, which had been inclined to stagnate, has
been brought into new prominence by the German excavations
at El Amarna, the reformer's capital.% In Germany itself a
discussion, not altogether free from acrimony, has been in
progress for some time regarding the nature and origin of the
new religion and the new art which accompanied it.1 The purpose
of the present article, which makes no offer of anything original,
is to place before British readers some of the results, if results
they can be called, of this discussion, and to give some idea of
the position in which the Akhenaton problem at present stands,
together with the lines which future research is likely to follow.
The bare facts are these. In 1375 B.C., Amenophis III., the
last of the great warrior-kings of the XVIII Dynasty, died,
leaving the throne to a young son named like himself Amenophis.
Not later than the sixth year of his reign this youth had apparently
effected a complete break with the State worship of Amun-Re
and moved his court and his capital downstream from Thebes
to El Amarna, where he founded a new city, Akhetaton, " Horizon
of the Disk," in which to worship the Aton, or disk of the sun.
In this new capital he reigned for ten or eleven more years, devoted
1 Zeitschrifi jiir Zgyptische Sprache, 52, pp. 73 ff., and 55, pp. i ff. Mitthcil-
ungen der Deutschen Orient- Gesellschaft, Nos. 50, 52 and 57. Amtliche Berichtf
aus di~. Preuszischen Kunstsammlungen, Band 34, pp. 127 ff., Band 35, pp. 134 ff.,
Band 40, pp. 42 ff., 211 ff., 281 ff.
39
40 T. ERIC PEET
to the worship of his god, and heedless of the alarming despatches
which kept pouring in from all parts of the Asiatic empire that
his fathers had founded, despatches which a lucky chance has
preserved to our day in the famous Tell el-Amarna tablets.
Within half a dozen years of his death the system which he had
founded fell to pieces, the old state religion was fully restored,
and the name of Akhenaton was but a hated memory. ^
Such are the main facts. But now the problems begin. How
was such a revolution possible in the most conservative country
in the ancient world ? Was the change gradual or sudden ?
Was it a real philosophical movement or a mere political reaction
against the power of Amun and his priesthood ? Was Akhenaton's
religion a true monotheism or not ? How and where did the
new and strange art of his reign arise ? Can we believe that a
mere boy in his teens was the leader of so vast a movement ?
These are a few of the problems, no one of which can be dealt
with independently of the rest. We shall not attempt to solve
them ; indeed, it may be that our data are not sufficient to give
a solution. We shall, however, try to indicate the lines along
which such an attempt would have to be made and to point out
some of the facts which would have to be taken into account.
We may appropriately begin with the early years of the change.
In the tomb of the king's mother Ty at Thebes was found a
coffin inscribed with the name of Akhenaton, and beyond all
doubt intended for his use. In this coffin lay the body of a
man, which in the nature of things one would expect to be that
of Akhenaton himself. This body has been minutely examined
by Professor Elliot Smith, who at first maintained that the age
at death could not have exceeded 26, and in response to strong
pressure from the archaeologists would only concede the possi-
bility of another four years at the utmost. Akhenaton, then,
died not later than his thirtieth year, and, as we have dates at El
Amarna extending up to year 17, it is clear that he was at most
13 years of age when he came to the throne. Now at El Amarna
he marked out the bounds of his new capital with a number of
rock stelae, most of which bear one and the same inscription and
are dated in Year 6 of his reign. Three, however, K, X and M,
bear a different inscription and are believed by some to be earlier.
And indeed the dating, which has survived in a damaged con-
dition on one stela only, has been read as 4 both by Lepsius and
Davies, though by both doubtfully. And their doubt is justified,
THE PROBLEM OF AKHENATON 41
for the day, 13 (if this be the correct reading),1 and the month
(fourth of the winter season) are precisely those of the other
group of stelae, so that unless these last were erected on an
anniversary of the first the probability is that Year 6 and not
Year 4 is the correct reading on K, X and M.2
But the decisive piece of evidence against the reading Year 4
lies in a letter written to the king in Year 5 by a steward of his
in Memphis. The titles here given to the king, " Great of rule
in Karnak," " Ruler of Thebes," as well as the references to
Ptah and other gods make it manifest that the king was then
still in Thebes and had not as yet abandoned the old religion.
In the face of this it is practically impossible to uphold the
dating Year 4 for the three stelae K, X and M, and we must
attribute these, together with the rest, to Year 6, when the king
moved his court to the new site.
Now unless we are prepared to deny that the mummy found in
Akhenaton's coffin was that of the king himself, we are faced
with the fact that he was not more than 13 at the time of his
accession, and that only six years later, when he was no more
than 19, he broke away from orthodoxy, changed his name
from Amenophis (" Amun is satisfied ") to Akhenaton (" The
Disk is pleased "), and moved his capital to El Amarna. Can
we credit a boy of this age with such remarkable precocity ?
If we may accept the maximum figure of 30 for the age at death,
and consequently that of 13 for the age at accession, there is no
very serious difficulty here. The Egyptian boy developed very
rapidly both in body and in mind, and as it is evident, whatever
view be taken of the philosophical value of the reform, that its
author was a man of lofty intellect and great imaginative power,
we should be justified in attributing to Akhenaton a precocity
even in advance of that usual in such a climate. \ If this is borne
in mind there will be no necessity to fall back on trie old suggestion
that the boy was merely a tool in the hands of some older person-
age whose name was, for political reasons, kept deep in the
background. The name most often mentioned in this connection
is that of his mother, Ty, and the name appealed strongly to those
who, on no evidence whatsoever, wished to trace the origin of
the Aton- worship to Syria, it b-ing frequently stated in the
1 Davies, El Amarna. V ., p. 28. n. 9.
2 The reference to Year 4 in line 20 of the inscription of Stela K does not in
the least confirm the reading Year 4 in line i. (loc cit. n. 8).
1
42 T. ERIC PEET
text-books that Ty was of Syrian parentage. However, the
discovery of the tomb and bodies of Yuia and Tuia, the parents
of Ty, makes it fairly certain that both were of Egyptian blood,
and it is probable that the theory of a Syrian origin for Akhenaton's
reform has had its day and will not return.
x Can we find any anticipations of Aton worship in earlier times
in Egypt ? In the Berlin Museum is a block of stone from
Karnak which shows a very interesting relief. On the left is
the Sun-god depicted in the usual Egyptian manner, namely as
a human being with a falcon's head surmounted by the sun's
disk. Above him stood the name " Horus-of-the-Horizon, who
rejoices in the horizon in his name of Shu who is in the Disk."
On the right is a king of usual type, named in the cartouche as
Neferkheperure Uanre, i.e., Akhenaton. Now the name given
to the Sun-god here is precisely the name given by Akhenaton
to his new deity, the Aton or Disk, and so at first the only point
of interest in the relief appeared to be the portrayal of the new
god in this old Sun-god form instead of in the form of the disk
with rays invariable at El Amarna. The stone acquired a very
different significance, however, when Borchardt noticed that
the cartouche had been altered in antiquity and that what
originally stood there, and was still traceable, was the name of
Amenophis III. The consequences of this discovery are obvious.
Already under Akhenaton's father, Amenophis III., there existed
a temple at Karnak dedicated to the Aton or Disk under the full
name of " Horus-of-the-Horizon who rejoices in the horizon in
his name of Shu who is in the Disk." This temple was clearly
destroyed immediately after the fall of the heresy, for the block
under discussion was found built into a pylon of Horemheb,
the first king of the full restoration. ' It was in this temple that
the new constructions mentioned in the Silsileh inscription,
which dates from the earliest years of Akhenaton, were carried
out.
Akhenaton, then, did not invent a new deity, but merely
brought into unique prominence one who already existed and
possessed temples in the time of his father. ^ There were, more-
over, priests of the Aton at Heliopolis1 under Amenophis III.,
probably in a temple called " The Aton is watchful in Helio-
polis " which we know to have existed there, and a Syrian town
called Hi-na-tu-na, which looks like a compound containing
1 Recueil de Travaux, VI., pp. 52 ff.
THE PROBLEM OF AKHENATON 43'
Aton, is mentioned in one of the Tell el-Amarna letters
which Knudtzon would assign to the reign of Amenophis III.
* In what, then, precisely did Akhenaton's reformation consist ?
It consisted in taking the god known as the Aton or Disk, who was
already a member of the Egyptian pantheon, and possibly
nothing more than an aspect of Re, the Sun-god, making him
the sole deity, the creator and ruler not only of Egypt, but also
of Nubia and Syria, in fact of the whole Egyptian world, and
representing him under the form not of the old sun-god Horus,
but as a disk from which shoot rays, ending in hands which
present symbols of life to the king. \ And here be it noticed that
there is one sense in which the new religion formed a continuation
of the old. Akhenaton's religion was a form of sun-worship,
and what else but sun-worship had been the state religion of
Egypt since the Fifth Dynasty? True, the Sun-god had from
time to time been combined with other deities in the easy Egyptian
fashion ; in early times with Atum and Horus, and in later times
with Amun under the form of Amun-re. Akhenaton accom-
plished two things : he broke away from the syncretism Amun-Re
by returning to a worship of the sun under its own form (a fact
which lends some colour to the belief that the movement was
merely a political one directed against the all too powerful
priesthood of Amun), and he established what has generally
been called a monotheism.
Great objection has been taken by some to the use of this
last term on the ground that a true monotheism involves the
suppression of all gods but the one, and that such a complete
suppression cannot be proved in the case of Akhenaton. This
is the view lately expressed by Max Miiller in his Egyptian
Mythology, and supported by Samuel Mercer. l Mercer maintains
that the persecution of other gods and the erasure of their names
did not go beyond Amun and his circle. It is true that there is
little or no proof that it did, but this may be due to the very
simple fact that practically the only temples of pre-Akhenaton
date preserved to us are in or near Thebes, and therefore con-
tained no divine names other than those of the cycle of Amun:
The rigorous erasure of the plural word " gods " distinctly
points to monotheism, and it would surely be cavilling to argue
that it was abhorred only because it frequently stood for Amun
and his group. At the same time it must be remembered that
1 Journal of the Society of Oriental Research, III, pp. 70 ff .
44 T. ERIC PEET
at the Speos Artemidos only the name of Amun was expunged,
though other gods are mentioned there, and in order to explain
this we should have to suppose that there was an early period
in the history of the new faith when the persecution had not yet
extended to the whole pantheon. This, however, is a point
which future excavation may clear up. <
Mercer, however, attacks the use of the term monotheism on
other grounds than these. In the boundary stelae of El Amarna,
dated to the sixth year Akhenaton in his titulary still includes
his " Two Goddesses' " name. This, according to Mercer, shows
that the king still recognized the goddesses Nekhbet and Buto.
This is most doubtful. The nbty, or " Two Goddesses " name,
had been from time immemorial one of the royal names, like
the " Horus " name and the " Son of Re " name. Akhenaton
complied with tradition to the extent of using all the five names
prescribed by custom, and the fact that one of these was known
as the " Two Goddesses " name no more proves that he recognized
the two goddesses than the description of William as a Christian
name proves that William Smith or William Brown is a Christian.
As reasonably might it be argued that Akhenaton believed in
the Goddess Maat because, when he wanted to write the word
for truth or justice, he made use of a hieroglyph consisting of a
figure of this deity.1
Still more unacceptable is Mercer's argument when he would
have us believe that Akhenaton was no monotheist because he
took to himself the title of " The Good God " and because he
had a priesthood of his own. " The Good God " was a regular
title of the Egyptian king, and Akhenaton regarded himself as a
living incarnation of At on just as every Pharaoh was the re-
presentative on earth of Horus. Priests of the reigning Pharaoh
are frequently mentioned in the Old Kingdom and occur, though
more rarely, in the XII Dynasty, and it was purely in accordance
with Egyptian conservatism if Akhenaton, when he abolished
all gods but one, did not surrender the prescriptive right of an
Egyptian king to a secondary worship,2 particularly in view of
his claim to be the medium through which the new cult was
1 Mercer is, however, quite right in claiming that the description of the Aton
as " Sole God beside whom there is no other " does not suffice to prove
monotheism. The phrase was used of various Egyptian gods.
2 On this point see Davies' admirably sober discussion of the whole question
in El Amarna, I. pp. 44 ff.
THE PROBLEM OF AKHENATON ^5
revealed to men. If this constitutes polytheism there would be
good reason for classing Christianity under that head.
Other deities which Mercer suggests may have been still
recognized by Akhenaton are Re the Sun-god, Hapi the Nile-god,
and the Mnevis bull. With regard to the first, suffice it to say
that though we may not know exactly how the king interpreted
the relation of the Aton to Re-Horus-of-the-Horizon, it is obvious
from the very name given by him to this new deity that Re,
Horus-of-the-Horizon and the Aton were not two nor yet three
but one. Moreover, an inspection of the passages quoted by
Mercer as evidence for the recognition of the Nile-god, reveals
the fact that they identify the Aton or the king not with the
Nile-god but with the Nile, the Aton, which is the creator of
everything, being ipso facto the Nile, which is the cause of all
existence and growth in Egypt. In any case, to say that Aton
is the Nile-god would be to speak not of two gods but of one.
Finally, the title " Strong Bull " borne by the king by no means
proves the recognition of the Mnevis Bull as a god. The bull is
throughout Egyptian history a symbol for strength and virility.
The reference to Mnevis and his burial at Akhetaton, in the
Boundary Stelae K, X and M, only serves to show how closely
connected the Disk-worship was at the outset with the cults
of Heliopolis, the home of Sun-worship in Egypt from time
immemoriaL^x-
If all tKeevidence be taken into account, it is hard to avoid
the conclusion that what Akhenaton aimed at was a true mono-
theism. If it was occasionally marred by traces of polytheism,
it is no more than might have been expected when we consider
the tremendous power of the long polytheistic tradition against
which the reformer had to contend. Be it remembered, too, that
from the moment of the move to El Amarna we lose all sense of
perspective, and are totally unable, from our lack of dated
material, to follow any development in the king's system. It
is hardly likely that so powerful a mind stood still for eleven
years, and excavation may reveal stages in the movement of
which we have as yet no idea.
The revolution in religion was accompanied by a revolution
in art. The old established canons of the Egyptian sculptor and
painter were laid aside, and an art of much greater freedom and
naturalism took their place. This is the art so well known to
us from El Amarna itself, and of late more abundantly illustrated
4< T. ERIC PEET
than ever before by the discovery, during the German excava-
tions, of a sculptor's workshop, left just as it was when ruin
overtook the Aton-city, nearly 4300 years ago. There lie the
plaster casts, the rough sketches in stone, executed doubtless
by the pupils and marked with alterations by the master, one
Dhoutmose by name, together with finished statues and groups
only awaiting delivery.
What was the origin of this new style, which suddenly came
to the untroubled surface of Egyptian art and disturbed it for
a few brief moments ? Discussion is still rife on this point, but,
oddly enough, it has, in Germany at least, raged most fiercely
around a point of comparatively small importance, namely,
whether Akhenaton in the early years of his reign did or did not
tolerate the old school of art, or, in other words, whether we
possess any works of art datable to his reign which do not yet
show the new style so familiar at El Amarna. Schaefer is the
champion of the affirmative side. It is true that the Berlin
block from the Aton temple in Karnak mentioned above, long
held to be a proof that at an early period in the reign the old art
still held its own, can no longer serve as evidence for this since
Borchardt discovered the change of cartouche on it. But quite
lately Schaefer has adduced in support of his hypothesis a photo-
graph of a relief on the pylon of the temple of Soleb in Nubia,
where a king represented in the old conventional style is accom-
panied by the cartouches of Akhenaton, free, to all appearance,
from any alteration except the usual and expected change of
Amenophis to Akhenaton1 in the second cartouche. To this
Borchardt replied with a photograph on a larger scale which
distinctly shows that the first cartouche has originally been
that of Amenophis III. and has been clumsily altered to that
of Akhenaton. This was obviously a heavy score for Borchardt,
but Schaefer, nothing daunted, still clings to his thesis, supporting
it, among other evidence, by the reliefs in the tomb of a certain
Ramose at Thebes, who lived under Amenophis III. and Akhena-
ton, dying in the reign of the latter. Here, in one part of the
tomb, is a figure of a king and attendant in the old style, and in
another a similar group in the new manner, but the cartouches
in both cases are those of Akhenaton. The first figure shows
distinct signs of having at one time been plastered over. Schaefer's
explanation is that both figures represent Akhenaton, but that
1 This change was doubtless made on all existing monuments in the sixth year.
THE PROBLEM OF AKHENATON 47
the first was executed before the change in religion and art,
which he regards as having been simultaneous in the sixth year.
After the change, at which time the tomb was unfinished, the
figure in the old style was covered with a coat of plaster on which
a figure in the new style was executed, the cartouche being of
course left untouched, and on the other wall fresh scenes were
added, naturally in the new style.
Borchardt is ready with an answer. He believes that the
grave was begun under Amenophis III. and that the relief in
the old style was complete all but the name when the king died.
The figure was then plastered over with a figure of the new
king, Akhenaton, whose name was inserted. Unless a closer
examination of the tomb reveals new evidence it is difficult to
see how we can decide between these two explanations.
We have not space here to discuss the two reliefs which Schaefer
regards as marking the transition from the old style to the new
during the first five years of the reign. Suffice it to say that
he is unable for the moment to point to any undoubted instance
of the new art which can be unequivocally dated to this period,
so that the honours for the time being would seem to rest with
Borchardt. But surely the point is somewhat trivial. If there
was a change, as there undoubtedly was, and if it did not take
place in the reign of Amenophis III.,1 then it must have taken
place in the reign of Akhenaton ; and as a boy of thirteen is hardly
likely to have introduced a new art at his accession the old art
must have continued some short distance into his reign, and
however abrupt the transition, there must have been a few works
of art in the old style executed under Akhenaton. Whether
we possess any of these is surely a mere matter of chance.
On the other hand, Schaefer has some wise words to say on
the subject of the artistic change in general. He remarks that
the new art did not come out of nothing. The germ must have
been there, and perhaps what enabled it to develop was the
fact that the young king afforded his protection to a school of
artists who were striving after new things, and, by giving them
the state contracts to execute, enabled them to impose their
art on the country. It must be realized that in Egypt art was
almost wholly engaged in the service of the state or its higher
servants. Consequently, though in a nation of such great
artists new ideas must from time to time have arisen, official
1 We may yet find that it did.
48 T. ERIC PEET
conservatism usually succeeded in stifling them. Schaefer may
even be right in his suggestion that in view of the complete
uniformity of the new art it was the outcome of a single great
master whom the king's favour had brought to the highest
artistic position in the state.
To what extent the new art was a reflex of the new religion it
is difficult to say. Attention has quite rightly been drawn, first
I believe by Petrie, to the passion for truth exhibited by the
reformer. One of his titles is " Living on Truth," no mere idle
boast, as is proved by various circumstances, and Schaefer goes
so far as to suggest that the same striving after truth which is
responsible for the new religion is also responsible for the strong
naturalism of the new art. This question seems to be so entirely
dependent on whether we regard the revolution of Akhenaton
as a purely political move or as a really new philosophy, a question
which we have not attempted to deal with here. If the king
changed the state religion simply to escape the power of the
priesthood of Amun it is equally likely that he gladly encouraged
any novelty in art which happened to be to hand in order to
accentuate the break. If, on the other hand, he was a great
philosopher with a message for the world, it is probable that he
chose this form of art precisely because it embodied ideas in
some way corresponding to those which he wished to disseminate.
JESSE HAWORTH
FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE MANCHESTER
EGYPTIAN ASSOCIATION.
BY WINIFRED M. CROMPTON.
IN Dr. Jesse Haworth we have lost one of the greatest English
supporters of Egyptian archaeological research, and the man
to whom Manchester's connection with that research is almost
entirely due. It is owing to his long continued and generous
gifts to the funds of scientific excavators that the Manchester
Museum possesses so fine a collection of Egyptian antiquities,
while the National Gallery, the British Museum, and other
institutions also have been enriched through him. The amassing
of antiquities is, indeed, but the least part of the work of an
archaeologist. Many wealthy men before Dr. Haworth had
formed great collections and presented them to their native
cities. The quest for such antiquities unfortunately has often
been the incitement of ignorant or unscrupulous persons to
destroy priceless historical evidence in a ransacking of sites
for saleable articles. It was the great merit of Dr. Haworth
that, very soon after his interest in Egypt developed, he realised
the right course to take, and, resisting the temptation to buy
through dealers, gave liberally to the excavations of trained
archaeologists. In fact, he may be called the pioneer of scientific
donors to archaeology, just as Flinders Petrie, whose work above
all he supported, has been termed the pioneer of scientific ex-
cavators. Thus, valuable as the collection in our Museum is,
the less tangible treasures — the historical and archaeological
facts discovered in acquiring objects — far outweigh the actual
objects in importance.
It was in 1880 that Mr. and Mrs. Haworth made a tour up the
Nile, as far as the second cataract. To prepare them for this,
they had read Miss Amelia Edwards' book A Thousand Miles
up the Nile. A few years later they met the authoress, and
they all became firm friends. She told them how the chair and the
chessboard and men of the great queen Hatshepsut were hidden
in an Arab house at Luxor, and through the Rev. Greville Chester,
Mr. Haworth bought these. They were exhibited in Manchester
D 49
50 WINIFRED M. CROMPTON
at the Jubilee Exhibition of 1887, and at its close were presented
to the British Museum, where they hold now a conspicuous place.
It was Miss Edwards who first drew their attention to the
great merit of Dr. Flinders Petrie, before they met him for the
first time at the meeting of the British Association in Manchester
in 1887. Mr. Haworth, struck by his ability, undertook to
bear a considerable portion of the costs of his next excavations.
Another friend, Mr. Martyn Kennard, bore an equal share.
This arrangement lasted for nine years, during which Mr. Haworth
had the disposal of a third of all that was found. The great
bulk of his share he handed on to the Manchester Museum, a
few articles only, of outstanding importance, going elsewhere.
Many of Petrie's most important discoveries took place during
this period. For instance, at Hawara were found the mummy
portraits in hot-coloured wax, which he was able to date to the
Roman period, and which show us the Greco-Roman style of
painting. The finest of these were given appropriately to the
National Gallery,, but a goodly number came here. Besides
these, interesting papyri, such as the second book of the Iliad,
now in the Bodleian Library, were unearthed. The pyramids
of Amenemhet III. and Senusert II. were identified, the first
that were shown to be of the twelfth dynasty ; the towns of
Kahun and Gurob, full of the everyday articles of the Twelfth
and Eighteenth dynasties respectively, were laid bare. The
oldest undoubted mummy was discovered and the early history
of the hieroglyphs greatly elucidated, at Medum. The excava-
tions at Tell el-Amarna brought a flood of light on that fascina-
ting personality, King Akhenaton, the " heretic." The mysterious
statues of Min, now at Oxford, were part of the result of work
at Koptos. Then followed the most important find perhaps of
all — the predynastic cemeteries at Naqada, and lastly the work
on Theban Temples and the finding of the great stele of Merenptah
on which the people of Israel are mentioned. " All these results,"
writes Petrie in Six Temples of Thebes, " are due to the public
spirit of the two friends who have been ever ready to let me
draw on their purses for such work. My best thanks, and those
of the public, are due to them for thus assisting in filling up our
knowledge of Ancient Egypt. How much this means we may
feel by just trying to imagine what our views would be now,
without this insight, at almost every age, into the civilisation
and works of that country."
JESSE HA WORTH 51
After 1896, Professor Petrie worked in connection with the
Egypt Exploration Fund until the foundation of the British
School of Archaeology in Egypt, of which he became Honorary
Director. It is one of the fundamental rules of both these
bodies, that all antiquities found are sent to public ' museums,
and they are distributed according to the amount subscribed by
residents in the neighbourhood of the various institutions. As
Mr. Haworth supported these excavations liberally, a large
number of objects were received each year at the Manchester
Museum, where for years they had to be stored in an attic. The
Jesse Haworth Building, in which they are now exhibited, we
owe, as its name implies, chiefly to him, and he also provided
that important, but often overlooked, item, the show cases.
This building was opened on October 3Oth, 1912, by Mr. Haworth.
Up to then, he had kept in his own house some of the smaller
and more attractive objects from the years of private excavations,
but after this he and Mrs. Haworth gave up every one to the
Museum, where children now take huge delight in the terracotta
model of a sedan chair, complete with two porters and a
passenger, and in the lizard-shaped slate palette, while the Coptic
cloths are of great interest to designers and workers with the
needle.
In 1913, Mr. Haworth received from the University the degree
of Doctor of Laws, in recognition of his services to the cause of
learning. It was through him that Manchester Museum soon
after became possessed of the jewellery from Riqqeh, unique in
Europe.
When the University appeal for funds was inaugurated in
1919, Dr. Haworth's name headed the list with a gift of £10,000
to be devoted to Museum purposes, and in his will he has be-
queathed the sum of £30,000 with a like design.
Dr. Haworth's connection with the Manchester Egyptian and
Oriental Society dates from its inception in October, 1906, for
he and Mrs. Haworth were original members, and he was elected
President at the first meeting. He held the office for two years,
and on his resignation in 1908 was succeeded by Dr. Casartelli,
Bishop of Salford.
In December, 1912, Dr. Haworth read, at a meeting of the
Society, a paper on " The Progress of Egyptology in Manchester."
Besides the general interest of the paper, one could not fail to
note the skill and modesty with which he avoided all but the
52 WINIFRED M. CROMPTON
most necessary references to his own share in the matter. A
full account appeared in the Report of our Society for 1912-13.
Though increasing age prevented him in recent years from
attending the meetings of our Society, he continued to take an
interest in its progress, and on our appeal for donations to the
Special Publications Fund last summer, his was the chief response.
His hope, however, had been, to arouse through the Museum
and the Society, sufficient interest in Egyptology to support
such a small venture as our Journal without dependence on the
gifts of one man, and it was, I think, a disappointment to him
that occasionally such gifts were required. There are signs
that such an interest is developing keenly among the younger
generation. The memory of Dr. Jesse Haworth will be cherished
and honoured more and more as the years go on, by students
zealous to use what he has provided so munificently.
SOME NEW PUBLICATIONS.
THE city of Erech is referred to in Gen. x, 10, as one of the four
cities originally founded by Nimrod in Babylonia. Loftus, as
a result of his explorations, fixed its site at the modern Warka.
Although little is known of the history of the city, the enormous
mounds and ruins which are scattered over a very wide area
suggest that in ancient times it must have contained a con-
siderably large population, whilst the frequency with which it
is referred to in Babylonian and Assyrian literature shows how
profound was its influence on the imagination of the Babylonian
literati.
That Erech was also* a city of considerable commercial pros-
perity can be learned from the numerous commercial documents
which have been discovered there dating from various periods
right down to 200 B.C. We have inscriptions from Erech dating
back to the early reigns of Dungi, Ur-Bau and Gudea, whilst
the later Babylonian kings have left many traces of their building
and restoration work.
The tablets which have been published recently by Professor
Clay (Neo- Baby Ionian Letters from Erech, Yale University Press,
1919, 2is. net ; Agent in England, Humphrey Milford) add
nothing new to our knowledge of the history of the city, but tend
to confirm and corroborate the information which we have
obtained from other sources. Warka was given by the discoverer
of the archive as the provenance of the tablets, and this is proved
beyond question by the fact that the administrative documents
with which the letters were found intermingled were dated in
that city. The letters deal chiefly with all sorts of business
affairs in connection with the management of the property of
E-anna, the Temple of Erech. There are references also, how-
ever, to arrangements for the celebration of the festivals, the
repair of canals, and even military and social affairs.
Fortunately, we can fix the dates of most of the letters, at
least with some degree of certainty. The form and character
of the script is similar to those of other letters of the Neo-
Babylonian period. Some letters contain references to the date
at which they were written ; the dates of others may be con-
jectured from their contents.
53
54 SOME NEW PUBLICATIONS
Text No. 175 is dated " igih of Shebet, of the nth year of
Darius, king of Countries." Text No. 176 is dated in the same
reign. Letters Nos. i and 3 were almost certainly written by
Nebuchadrezzar, whilst Nos. 2 and 4 were most probably written
during the reign of Nabonidus, for they are addressed to
Kurbanni-Marduk whom we know to have been a director of
the storehouse in that reign. It is also of interest to note that
letter 115 refers to an intercalary month Ve-Adar to be intro-
duced in the I5th year, and we know from other sources that
there was a Ve-Adar introduced in the fifteenth year of the
reign of Nabonidus.
Letter 196 also evidently belongs to the reign of Nabonidus.
There is a reference here to the introduction of a Second Elul
in the middle of the year, and the tenth year of Nabonidus is
the only period of Neo-Babylonian history when this change
could have been made. One may say therefore that these
letters were written during the period from Ashurbanipal to
Darius I. (522-486 B.C.). Furthermore, many of the names
mentioned are found also in other documents dealing with
temple officials from the period suggested.
Finally, it is of interest to note that Bel, Nabu, and Marduk,
the gods of Babylon and Borsippa, are referred to so frequently
as to suggest a strong connection between these towns and
Erech at this period. M fj p
We wish it had been possible to devote a special article to a
work recently published, which is of outstanding importance,
the Rylands Library edition of The Odes and Psalms of Solomon
(vol. i., The Text with facsimile reproductions, 1916, IDS. 6d.
net ; vol. ii., The Translation with Introduction and Notes,
1920, £i is. net). The authors are Rendel Harris and Alphonse
Mingana, and anyone who has any interest in Semitic Languages
will feel that a stronger combination of special qualifications
could hardly have been found. Rendel Harris's name will
always be associated particularly with the Odes of Solomon,
which he discovered in a Syriac manuscript in 1909, and published
for the first time in the same year (Cambridge). Two years
later there appeared (Cambridge, 1911) The Odes and Psalms of
Solomon, published from the Syriac Version, second edition revised
and enlarged, with a facsimile. Since the publication of these
two early editions, the Odes have been much studied and dis-
SOME NEW PUBLICATIONS 55
cussed from various points of view by many scholars, including
Alphonse Mingana, and have been much re-read and re-studied
by Rendel Harris himself. The time was ripe therefore for a
re-editing, such as we are now provided with. The Rylands
Library edition is likely to be regarded for many years as the
standard work, and no library, in which any importance is
attached to Semitic languages and literatures, can dispense
with these valuable volumes.
The person who is regarded by the Jainas as the real founder
of their religion is best known as Vira or Mahavfra. He seems
to have been a historical character, and is supposed to have
lived either in the last half of the sixth or in the first half of the
fifth century B.C. But there have been other Jaina Saviours.
One of these was Pargvanatha, who is said by the Jainas to have
been born in 817 B.C. That he was really a historical personage
has not been proved. But there have gathered round his name
doctrines which are fundamental in Jaina religion and legends
which enrich the storehouse of Hindu fiction. In 1912 an
account of the life of Parsvanatha by Bhavadeva was published
in India. This gave to the western world the first complete
biography. A digest of this work has now been published by
Professor Maurice Bloomfield with the title The Life and Stories
of the Jaina Savior Parcvandtha (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins
University, 1919, pp. vii. +254). The book will prove of great
interest to students of Oriental literature, and of special interest
to those who are pursuing the comparative study of legends.
There are, for instance, legends here which remind us of such
Biblical narratives as the story of David and Uriah (p. 130) and
the parable of the talents (p. 120). We do not mean that there
is any close resemblance, but that the one story recalls the other
in a way that is interesting and noteworthy. Professor Bloom-
field's work contains valuable notes and appendices, and a
useful index of subjects.
The latest addition to " The Religious Quest of India " series
is a handbook by one of the editors, J. N. Farquhar, entitled
An Outline of the Religious Literature of India (Humphrey Milford,
Oxford University Press, 1920, pp. xxviii. +451, i8s. net). In
preparing this handbook, Dr. Farquhar has grappled courageously
with a stupenduous task, and in publishing it he has supplied
56 SOME NEW PUBLICATIONS
a pressing need. Many of the religious writings of India are
books written to explain the doctrines or to support the claims
of various schools or sects. In giving an account of the literature,
therefore, there is much that may be said about phases of religion.
Consequently, when the subject is treated with some thorough-
ness, as it has been treated by Dr. Farquhar, it is as full of religious
as it is of literary interest. The book contains a vast amount
of information ; and its value is enhanced by an elaborate
bibliography (pp. 362-405) and a very comprehensive index
(pp. 407-457).
M. A. C.
JOURN/
EGY
5TER
MANCHESTER
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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1923
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